I suspect that northwestern 'finger of stands' is to be provided early and for bussing pax to give a 'hit' of stand capacity at the start of the programme of works. Much quicker to provide like shown than to build the pier.
Other stands will be taken out whilst the new piers are built and each is probably only a small increase in gates over now once complete.
So it's probably sensible to do it this way and perhaps, just perhaps, try and get a small number of airlines to use that area at a discount. I'm thinking Monarch, Jet2, Easy maybe. Airlines with an all narrow body fleet. Getting Jet2 to move to T2 early in the programme would surely also help relieve capacity issues at T1 and maybe T3 if passengers can move through from T3 to T1 airside.
I suspect that it will be developed eventually along with a re-development of T1 and T3.
Last edited by GavinC; 1st Mar 2016 at 08:29.