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Calgary International Airport

The 3 way swing gates were clearly an afterthought and clearly suck. They do make it easier for the airlines to drive utilization rates. A satellite terminal for them might be better, buses delivering domestic, USA or International pax. A 3 floor stack. All gates 3 way swings. Basically a Sun/Sun USA/Domestic Swing Terminal. Dedicate the in terminal swings to domestic-trans-ocean swings. If the airlines find value in not towing aircraft, they can pay for it. And then can pay for a new super terminal that does this all the time. I think they'd quickly realize that it would be unaffordable to build the ultimate facility for them versus towing some planes.

Filling in some of the apron with a larger domestic lounge space would be nice. Can't really solve the distance issue ever.
 
darwink said:
The 3 way swing gates were clearly an afterthought and clearly suck. They do make it easier for the airlines to drive utilization rates. A satellite terminal for them might be better, buses delivering domestic, USA or International pax. A 3 floor stack. All gates 3 way swings. Basically a Sun/Sun USA/Domestic Swing Terminal. Dedicate the in terminal swings to domestic-trans-ocean swings. If the airlines find value in not towing aircraft, they can pay for it. And then can pay for a new super terminal that does this all the time. I think they'd quickly realize that it would be unaffordable to build the ultimate facility for them versus towing some planes.

Filling in some of the apron with a larger domestic lounge space would be nice. Can't really solve the distance issue ever.
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Distance issue between domestic and international?
 
Surrealplaces said:
IIRC the plan was to start with the link carts and eventually build in something more fixed. On the flip side, is a fixed train service really needed? Unless the airport is a large hub like ATL, or JFK, etc... it's not efficient to have a rail service to cater to the amount of connecting passengers at YYC. You could have a 50 person rail car going back and forth, but it would be empty most of the time. If the car leaves and misses some passengers, they have to wait a while for another car. If another car is available, great, but that's quite a waste of resources having two 50 person shuttles waiting around.
There's no reason the carts can't get the job done, and can even be more efficient.... it's more of a function of planning the carts better to suite the flight schedules. Each cart can carry up to 10 people, it's just a matter of having a few extra carts on hand.
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They can also use two types of carts, one that hold up top 10 people, and go regularly at short intervals, and a few larger carts that hold up to maybe 20 people, and go when there are sudden influxes of people.
 
Surrealplaces said:
IIRC the plan was to start with the link carts and eventually build in something more fixed. On the flip side, is a fixed train service really needed? Unless the airport is a large hub like ATL, or JFK, etc... it's not efficient to have a rail service to cater to the amount of connecting passengers at YYC. You could have a 50 person rail car going back and forth, but it would be empty most of the time. If the car leaves and misses some passengers, they have to wait a while for another car. If another car is available, great, but that's quite a waste of resources having two 50 person shuttles waiting around.
There's no reason the carts can't get the job done, and can even be more efficient.... it's more of a function of planning the carts better to suite the flight schedules. Each cart can carry up to 10 people, it's just a matter of having a few extra carts on hand.
Click to expand...

Frequency could be reduced in between peak periods however I don't think APM's cost much to run they are basically large horizontal elevators.
 
Reecemartin said:
Frequency could be reduced in between peak periods however I don't think APM's cost much to run they are basically large horizontal elevators.
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Access to a level where there is an exclusive ROW is the expensive part of an APM, plus building the ROW into an existing building is hard. Dulles spent more than a billion bucks on their APM. In 5 years I bet the LINK carts will be automate-able, just replacing drivers with station attendants.
 
Cowtown said:
Those are very good numbers. Won't be long until we pass 17M.
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The airport authority's own estimate of 6.4% growth should see passenger movements around 17.3M this year.


Per the early discussion around future expansions beyond the current one. Here's an image I found following some Googling.

It's actually from an SRC article: https://calgary.skyrisecities.com/news/2016/12/science-behind-signs-wayfinding-yycs-new-international-terminal

24154-84502.png
 
If YYC had a much larger volume of passengers I think I fixed APM would be more feasible.
As it stands today to get a PM card bacon off to handle 50 people would not be very efficient. The cost might not seem much more for a single run but when you’re running cars that are potentially mostly empty in order to keep up my frequency, and running back-and-forth all day 365 days a year it adds up. Not to mention the upfront cost of building it is far more expensive than using the shuttles.
A fixed APM is sexier, but the shuttle car method is more efficient at least until the airport has huge volumes of traffic. You can have a fixed APM system with small carriages, but then you’re no better off than with shuttle cars.
Reecemartin said:
Frequency could be reduced in between peak periods however I don't think APM's cost much to run they are basically large horizontal elevators.
Click to expand...
 
darwink said:
The 3 way swing gates were clearly an afterthought and clearly suck.
Click to expand...

I'll agree that they suck, but the trisector gates are the basis of the design and the most crucial gates for both WS and AC. Most of the problems can be attributed to the desire to separate int'l, transborder, and domestic outbounds, as opposed to just transborder from everybody else.

darwink said:
A 3 floor stack. All gates 3 way swings. Basically a Sun/Sun USA/Domestic Swing Terminal.
Click to expand...

I keep seeing this mentioned, and I can't see a way to do it without being obscenely expensive.

darwink said:
A satellite terminal for them might be better, buses delivering domestic, USA or International pax.
Click to expand...

I'm sure that'd go over well with pax, a brand new billion dollar facility and you have to get on a bus to a satellite terminal.
 
Acey said:
I'll agree that they suck, but the trisector gates are the basis of the design and the most crucial gates for both WS and AC. Most of the problems can be attributed to the desire to separate int'l, transborder, and domestic outbounds, as opposed to just transborder from everybody else.



I keep seeing this mentioned, and I can't see a way to do it without being obscenely expensive.



I'm sure that'd go over well with pax, a brand new billion dollar facility and you have to get on a bus to a satellite terminal.
Click to expand...

If you are building satellites I really hope you are also building a tunnel and maybe a link or apm
 
Just build it said:
Lots of increases of Westjet flights, is this just a typical seasonal increase when going from fall to winter? Or an increase over last year’ winter schedule?
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Increase over last year's winter schedule, but without mention of the decreases. I don't know the decreases, as they aren't mentioned, but there are bound to be a few here and there, but much less than 17. Still a very healthy increase.
 
Acey said:
Modern planes just use better numbers in terms of estimating the likely configuration of airlines, weights of passengers, etc. It's not to say Airbus underestimated the burn when they published that number back in 1990 or whenever. And that's still air... when you're fighting an insane headwind the whole way across the country that reduces range. As for the real world range of CSeries, I'd have to do some reading. I know it initially performed better than expected and the range was bumped. Wouldn't surprise me if it could outfly a 319 but I don't know for sure.
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Here's another question, does AC fly any A320's or A319's from Vancouver to St John's? I'm assuming that they don't as the distance is not much different.

On a separate note, I see that the runway takeoff length for the A220 is 4,800ft, and Springbank's new runway addition puts it at 5,000ft..... I wonder if this is a possibility someday?
 
Oddball said:
The airport authority's own estimate of 6.4% growth should see passenger movements around 17.3M this year.


Per the early discussion around future expansions beyond the current one. Here's an image I found following some Googling.

It's actually from an SRC article: https://calgary.skyrisecities.com/news/2016/12/science-behind-signs-wayfinding-yycs-new-international-terminal

24154-84502.png
Click to expand...
OMG that expansion with an LRT connecting to the airport would make me so happy. Obviously decades away but hopefully one day.
 
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