Airport processing - a complete rethink

[WHBM]

This topic has been discussed before but is maybe worth a separate thread.

Airport processing of passengers has become cumbersome because the old-days approach has just been tinkered with rather than radically rethought. If security clearance and check-in was performed at the GATE, in front of the aircraft, and baggage delivery and customs/immigration check on arrival, rather than the present locations then the following benefits seem to accrue:

Pax do not get lost or delayed by security between check-in and aircraft.

No concerns about separation of arriving and departing pax.

No need to do baggage reconciliation. no chance of baggage being misrouted.

Connecting pax go through the same security procedures

Whole terminal up to the gates can be open territory for those accompanying passengers, avoiding much of the wheelchair operation.

Utilisation of security screeners and customs/immigration can be little less than the present, with appropriate organisation. They come, process, pass on to next flight.

No concerns for pax about the aircraft leaving without them as they are stuck in security queues.

There is no need for pax to be relieved of their baggage at check-in like in the old "carriage trade" days. Distances from car park or train are anyway often much greater than the distance in the terminal.

Opportunities for shopping for all, not just passengers (so will appeal to BAA).

[Globaliser]

A number of airports already effectively have some or all of this in operation, and there are serious disadvantages.

The main question is what do you do with the pax after they have checked-in, deposited their checked bags and cleared security? At airports like TXL, the only option is to sit in the sin bin for as long as is necessary, with only the gate lounge's own duty free shop for company (size: three strides x one stride). It is one of the most unpleasant waiting ideas that I have seen.

However, the alternative at TXL is to check-in and deposit baggage, and then go off to the lounge or some other landside place. But this does nothing to solve the problem because pax will be as late back to security as they are anyway.

At airports like SIN, where security is done at the gate, there is a similar sin bin problem, best solved only by turning up at the gate at the very last minute.

The idea of shopping for everyone is also great in theory, but pax are much less likely to be able to use the facilities because almost everyone is going to be wheeling around a trolley full of bags that will need to be checked. Going shopping when you've got that in tow is not very appealing. And shops (and the landside space generally) will have to be much bigger to even try to accommodate this.

[TheOddOne]

OK, how about this, then?

DHL collect your bag from your home the day before travel. You then take personal transport (public transport or your car) to a designated satellite area remote from the airport, pass through security on to a bus. Whilst on the bus someone comes round and reads your ID (passport or ID card) to confirm you can travel and are boooked on the flight. The bus takes you DIRECT TO THE AIRCRAFT. You walk up the steps of the a/c along with the rest of the busload. A/c departs. At the other end, bus takes you from a/c to remote transport node for onward travel. You arrive at your destination where your luggage is waiting for you. It may have travelled on the same a/c as you, but not necessarily. Using logistics and timed delivery is probably streets ahead of our baggage systems at the airports.

NO BUILDINGS at the airport. Just proper stands and manoeuvring area.

We were using remote check-in and bussing to the a/c 50 years ago - anyone remember West London Air Terminal and those BEA buses with 1 & 1/2 decks and the baggage trailers?

What goes around, comes around...

Cheers,
The Odd One

[egnxema]

Please could anyone explain the concern about keeping arriving and departing passengers separated?

I understood it to prevent someone getting off one flight, and hopping onto another.

But.....I was in AMS last Thursday, and to me the whole place seemed to be one area of arriving and departing pax.

I flew in with SAS from OSL, walked straight into the lounge area "D" and walked (AMS is HUGE isn't it!) through to Lounge area "B" and shopped along the way - at no point could I descern any distinction between me 'arriving' and 'departing'.

So why do other airports go to such lengths to keep the 2 separate?

ANOTHER thing........

OSLO Gardemoen must be one of the best airports I have ever travelled through, all wooden floors and glass walls. Even the airbridges had glass walls.

I noticed that the security and x-ray area, after check-in was so open plan. At UK airports you are made to feel like you are entering some hermetically sealed decompression chamber, all behind screens, strictly no photography etc etc.

At OSL you can stand in the check-in area, watch people walk through security, and see them til they disappear into the duty free shopping area.

Again - why the difference at UK airports?

I understand totally about terrorism risks and the like - but where is the risk in the OSL style, and the protection in the LHR style.

[Irish Steve]

Please could anyone explain the concern about keeping arriving and departing passengers separated?

Before all the changes in security, if incoming and outbound were not separated, there was the possibility, (and still could be) of a passenger bringing something with them from a less well regulated airport (internal flights were almost like bus services, with minimal formalities) and passing "something" to an outbound passenger. I leave to your imagination what "something" could be, and terrorism is not the only possibility here.

In theory, it's less of a risk now, but there are still regional airports that have very little in the way of scanning and the like, so the risk is there. In some cases incoming transit passengers now have to pass through security scans before getting to the "gate" area, so that problem is now resolved.

[LGS6753]

The Odd One -

Wot, no shops?

[TheOddOne]

My very livelihood derives from the profit made at airport shops, our regulator prevents us from making any significant profit from landing & parking fees. I shouldn't really knock the concept of the airport as shopping mall.

However, I can see a future where people's purchasing habits have changed to the extent that traditional style shops will reduce in importance to the extent that they won't sustain the costs of running an airport. We would then have to seek alernative, cost-effective solutions. Already I buy all my music on-line, whether in hardware or downloads. I buy all my books on-line, too so that's 2 shops that have no pull for me. Frankly, there's nothing in our shops that interests me, except perhaps for a bottle of water ( that's all I bought before my last 2 flights).

Already, some of the LoCos would be happier if we just made a hole in the perimeter fence for their pax to walk through. If you do away with baggage handling, what's the building actually FOR?

Cheers,
TheOddOne