Major terminal realignment at Sea-Tac affects most airlines, counters

In the constantly evolving life of a major airport, not much stays the same for long.

Even those who work there daily aren’t always sure how the airport’s interior layout has been altered.

“Sometimes, I’m just not sure what’s changed,” admitted Perry Cooper, Seattle-Tacoma International Airport’s chief spokesman and a man whose job it is to know what’s happening at the airport.

Blame that confusion not on faulty observational skills, but on the unending shuffle that makes a place like Sea-Tac a changing landscape.

The tempo of that game of aeronautical musical chairs is about to quicken as the airport begins a major internal realignment that, in two years, will leave few airlines’ operations unaltered.

In a project that is expected to cost the airport and its airlines something north of $100 million, both the terminal lobby and the gates and concourses will see major changes.

Airline counters will be shifted to accommodate big mergers and new alliances and gates will be reassigned to account for the changing market shares of the airlines that call at Sea-Tac.

Less monumental changes have been happening for years, but incremental adjustments will no longer do to handle the altered airline profiles.

Take the situation at Sea-Tac’s North Satellite terminal, for instance.

Two decades ago, that terminal, reached by an underground tram from the main terminal, was exclusively served by United Airlines, then the airport’s dominant carrier. As United’s market share eroded and its flights from Sea-Tac became fewer, the airline began reducing the number of gates it leased.

In the meantime, Sea-Tac’s hometown carrier, Alaska Airlines, expanded its network, first to more cities in the West and Mexico and then to the East Coast and Midwest and finally to Hawaii. Together with its regional sister airline, Horizon Air, and its contract carrier Skywest, Alaska Air Group now has the largest share of the Sea-Tac market at 51 percent.

Alaska began expanding its gates to include North Satellite gates formerly used by United, which now ranks fourth in market share at the airport.

Now Alaska has told Sea-Tac officials it wants the North Satellite to itself. It plans a major remodeling of that building to bring its amenities up to date and to give it a distinctive brand identity. Alaska’s move will free up space in the D Concourse where it formerly handled most of its flights. Alaska will retain the gates it now uses in the C Concourse.

So what happens to United?

That carrier last year merged its operations with Continental. The merged operation will need more space than United has at the North Satellite or Continental has on the B Concourse. The solution? Move both to the A Concourse.

Those desired moves require an intricately choreographed set of gate shifts that will occur over the next two years.

HERE’S WHAT’S PLANNED

Late 2011: AirTran moves from the A Concourse to the B Concourse next to its merger partner Southwest Airlines. This move has already been accomplished.

Mid -2013: Frontier moves to the B Concourse from A. American and JetBlue change from A to D where Alaska has already vacated several gates.

Late 2013: Virgin America relocates from A to B as does Hawaiian.

Then the big move: United/Continental moves to A.

As United moves from the North Satellite, Alaska starts remodeling activity there and on the C Concourse.

Meanwhile in the ticketing lobby, a similar shuffle happens. AirTran has already moved its counter next to Southwest.

When the two carriers’ operations are fully integrated, that AirTran space will become more space for Southwest.

At the main terminal’s north end, Continental will integrate its ticketing operations with merger partner United by year’s end.

In midyear next year, Virgin America will move its ticket counter.

Of course, all these carefully mapped plans are subject to change.

Frontier’s parent, Republic Airways Holdings Inc., last week announced plans to sell or spin off the carrier. A new combination could force another realignment at the airport.

Those plans only accommodate domestic carriers. If the airport attracts many more international airlines, more readjustments would be necessary.

International flights are now handled at the airport’s South Satellite terminal where customs and immigration facilities are located. This year alone, two new foreign airlines, Condor and Emirates, have announced new Sea-Tac service.

Condor began service from Sea-Tac to Frankfurt last summer. Emirates plans to start service to its Dubai hub next spring.

Mike Ehl, the airport’s director of operations, said the airport can handle perhaps two more foreign flights at the South Satellite before it has to consider changing the international operations. Already, the simultaneous influx of foreign arrivals at midday is forcing Delta, the South Satellite’s major tenant, to move some flights to the A Concourse for deplaning and boarding.

Ideally, any expansion of the international arrivals operation would eliminate the time-consuming and cumbersome rechecking and rescreening of bags for passengers arriving at Sea-Tac from outside the country.

For the airport, this major realignment provides the airport a chance to convert more of its gates to common use gates.

That means, in some cases, buying the jetbridges and other facilities at those gates from the airlines.

In the past, airlines often leased gates long-term for their preferred use, said Ehl. Now, in the interest of maximizing the use of those gates, the airport is bringing more gates under the common-use umbrella.

Under that system, an airline leases a gate by the hour to handle its own flights. One common-use gate could theoretically handle 10 flights for four different airlines during the same day.

Under the old long-term lease system, that gate could sit idle for most of the day if the carrier that leased it had only a few flights to Sea-Tac daily.

Changes in technology have helped move the common-use trend forward.

At a common-use gate, for instance, large flat screens at the gate can be changed instantly to change a gate say from an American Airlines gate handling a departure to Dallas to a JetBlue gate handling a boarding to New York’s JFK after the American flight has departed. Gate agents can log in and out of the common-use computer terminal at that gate to access their own airlines’ reservation system.

The airport for years has prescribed a common decor at the gates, even those leased long-term.

The carriers furnished their own seats at those gates. That gave the airport flexibility to move airlines as needed when carriers came and went over the years.

Now, the proliferation of common-use gates will make those changes easier and allow the airport to squeeze more capacity out of its terminals.

The common-use concept is also the active trend in ticketing lobbies.

Already, international airlines with only a few flights a week can share ticket counters when their departures occur when another airline doesn’t have a flight.

Though Sea-Tac expects to post record patronage this year – more than 32 million passengers – the airport has scaled back physical expansion plans contemplated a decade ago because of the more efficient use of space.

At the main terminal’s north end, Alaska Airlines installed its “Airport of the Future” check-in facility three years ago.

That facility uses parallel lines of check-in kiosks to process passengers instead of a single counter facing the departure drive as do other airlines.

Alaska’s facilities depends heavily on automated printers and passengers’ home computers to print boarding passes.

That relatively new Alaska arrangement handles more than 50 percent of the airport’s departing passengers in just 17 percent of the terminal’s lobby space, said Ehl.

The airport operations manager said he expects other airlines will adopt similar check-in facilities.

Next on the modernization agenda is the installation of self-help machines that will issue baggage tags as well as boarding passes. If that technology works well and is widely adopted, much of the work that goes on in the terminal lobby could be eliminated, said Ehl.

Ultimately, all Sea-Tac airlines could share common baggage drops where passengers would leave their tagged bags for screening and sorting and loading on their aircraft regardless of the airline they were flying.

Airline counter personnel would handle only complex issues that can’t be done without assistance.

“In 10 years,” predicted Ehl, “the terminal as we know it will disappear.”

John Gillie: 253-597-8663
john.gillie@thenewstribune.com
blog.thenewstribune.com/business

Since the advent of airline deregulation in 1978, airlines have been free to add and subtract domestic routes at will. That freedom has resulted in a swinging door at major airports as airlines arrive and leave at will as economic factors and markets dictate. Sea-Tac has seen its share of airlines that have come and gone during those three decades – all the more reason to make converting ticket counters and gates to a new airline an easy exercise. Here are some of the airlines that once called on Sea-Tac that have disappeared.

Domestic carriers

National: Acquired by Pan Am 1980

Hughes AirWest: Bought by Republic 1980

Braniff International: Halted operations 1982

Cascade Airways: Ceased operations 1983

Wien Air Alaska: Folded 1985

Western: Delta acquired 1986

Republic Airways: Became part of Northwest 1986

Jet America: Acquired by Alaska 1987

Air Cal: Acquired by American 1987

People Express: Merged into Continental 1987

PSA: Bought by USAir 1987

Pan Am World Airways: Out of business 1991

Eastern Air Lines: Collapsed 1991

Morris Air: Became part of Southwest 1993

Vanguard: Bankrupt 1996

Western Pacific: Bankrupt 1998

Reno Air: American bought 1999

Reeve Aleutian Airways: Ceased operations 2000

TWA: Acquired by American 2001

National Airlines (Las Vegas): Ceased operations 2002

America West: Merged with US Airways 2006

ATA: Ceased operations 2008

Northwest: Merged with Delta 2009

Midwest: Combined with Frontier 2010

Continental Airlines: Merged with United 2010

AirTran: Bought by Southwest 2011

Realigned their routes, left Sea-Tac:

 • SAS

 • Thai

 • Japan Air Lines

 • Aeromexico

 • China Eastern

 • Finnair

 • Aeroflot

 • Canadian

 • Mexicana