Midlands Today - April 1984
A couple of interesting and what turned out to be ironic quotes, the obvious one about passengers having a good view of aircraft, which eventually BHX managed to turn into a virtual impossibility in T1 until the new pier was built.
The other was the opening had only a few teething problems or something similar. I always wondered if they actually did build a cellar within the airport boundary!
Okay a slight exaggeration but when we went to view the facilities before it opened we were politely told that the cellar for the bars had been difficult to place and how right they were. The word was that it was forgotten originally and only added later with a 3-500ft run for the beer (can't remember the exact length). Pipe cleaning was interesting as well as changing a barrel, especially explaining to the customer the time it would take.
How do you design four bars without a cellar or if they did why was it such a distance from the main bars, costing a fortune in wasted beer during cleaning the pipes (before you ask it was not put back).
Despite passenger figures were low at 1.6 million in general between 1979 and 1985 and as a youngster not having much insight into the future of aviation, still my fist thought when seeing the terminal from the inside, was where was the rest of it and it was not that surprising it didn't last in it's original format for too long. By 1989 I had long left but I would imagine things were getting tight for seating etc.
Here are the CAA figures before during and after the terminal was built: -
1979 - 1.608 million
1980 - 1.602
1981 - 1.535
1982 - 1.161
1983 - 1.161
1984 - 1.740
1985 - 1.701
1986 - 2.216 +27%
1987 - 2.272 +26%
1988 - 2.876
1989 - 3.431 +19%
1990 - 3.618
1991 - 3.396
1992 - 3.827
1993 - 4.202
1994 - 4.943
1995 - 5.328
Pete