A brief look at the history of the terminal might explain its current shortcomings in that no-one could have forecast, or could have been expected to forecast, how the airport would have massively exceeded the passenger estimates that were the basis of planning the terminal in the 1990s.
* Bristol Airport News Issue No 1 of early 1993, is an impressive newspaper format of 16 pages. The planned new terminal is discussed at length. It had been approved by the local authority but was to go to public enquiry later in 1993. The terminal was designed for up to 2 mppa which total was expected to be reached at BRS in 2003 (a doubling of the 1992 figure).
* Following the public enquiry permission was given for the terminal to be built but because the then local authority-owned airport could not afford to build it the matter was deferred until First Group took a controlling share in the airport's ownership later in the decade.
* Airborne issue 3/winter 1999 (the successor to Bristol Airport News) carried an article and drawings of the new terminal that was then under construction and which it was said would have a capacity of 3 mppa.
* The 3 mppa capacity terminal was opened in spring 2000 by which time the airport was handling 2 mppa. Apart from the Ryanair Dublin service there was no low-cost airline seemingly in prospect, let alone a major lo-co route network.
* Go arrived in May 2001 and with it and its later absorption into easyJet the huge growth in passenger numbers and flights began.
* By 2008 annual passenger numbers had risen beyond 6 mppa but the only real increase in terminal size since its opening is a relatively small extension at the eastern end built on the ground floor which has added room for extra check-in desks and a catering outlet.
* Despite in excess of £20 million subsequently spent on amelioration schemes such as turning much of the existing landside above ground floor level into airside, significantly increasing/altering the size and layout of the security area, revamping retail/catering outlets and building the western walkway, the fact remains that the terminal was designed for a throughput of 3 mppa.
* The much-needed major expansion of the main terminal and other infrastructure was first put into the public domain in autumn 2005 through the draft master plan. After public consultations the master plan was published in early 2006 with a stated time scale of of submitting the planning application in the spring of that year.
* Because of the well-orchestrated campaign of opposition to expansion the master plan has been revised more than once since then following yet more public consultations and studies into various aspects of it, with the result that the planning process is now four years behind the original schedule.
* Passenger numbers continue to burgeon with the exception of the 2009 hiatus and congestion grows, though the airport in evidence to a Competition Commission investigation into neighbouring regional airports under separate ownership reckons the current airport could handle 8 mppa 'with some tweaking of facilities'.
* BRS will always be physically constrained in expanding much beyond the current boundary unless it spreads onto Felton Common at its eastern end, and this will have immense environmental ramifications as the airport recognises in its master plan which, in part, is why it believes an extended runway is not thought viable or even necessary. The airport is bordered mainly by downward sloping ground on its other three sides.
* Its major expansion plans do include provision for air bridges to some stands.
From this it can be seen that the airport is aware of the need to expand, wants to expand, presumably is confident about access to funds to expand but is being slowed down, some might even say obstructed, by the democratic planning process with all that entails, including the peripheral barrier of well-funded, well-connected and well-briefed opponents standing on the sidelines whilst figuratively waving red cards.
I acknowledge that the airport may have to compromise when it negotiates contracts with airlines, especially aggressive low-cost ones, and therefore has to try to recoup some of this money through other revenue streams such as car parking and retail/catering outlets.
It's a balancing act but I'm not sure the airport has got it quite right yet, at least from its passengers' viewpoint.