{"id":15021,"date":"2019-01-17T02:32:39","date_gmt":"2019-01-17T02:32:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=15021"},"modified":"2019-01-18T02:52:56","modified_gmt":"2019-01-18T02:52:56","slug":"in-airports-of-the-future-everything-new-is-old-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/in-airports-of-the-future-everything-new-is-old-again\/","title":{"rendered":"In ‘airports of the future,’ everything new is old again"},"content":{"rendered":"

Janet Bednarek<\/a>, University of Dayton<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

As massive new airports<\/a> open across Asia and the Middle East, U.S. airports are enhancing security checkpoints with technological gadgets<\/a> to screen passengers and luggage more quickly. All these projects are often touted as \u201cairports of the future<\/a>,\u201d in which air travel will be faster, more efficient and more enjoyable than ever before.<\/p>\n

However, as a scholar of the history of U.S. airports<\/a>, I\u2019m most interested to see that all these shiny improvements are still struggling to solve the problems that have vexed airport managers and passengers<\/a> since at least the late 1950s. Even at the dawn of the jet age<\/a>, airlines had trouble moving people and bags through airports \u2013 and they still do. It\u2019s unclear that bigger airports serving ever more passengers will have an easier time than their smaller, less crowded predecessors.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Chicago\u2019s O’Hare, one of the nation\u2019s busiest airports, stretches across an area one-third the size of Manhattan.<\/span>
\nJay8g\/Wikimedia Commons<\/a>, CC BY-SA<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A long way to walk<\/h2>\n

When commercial jet airliners came to the U.S. in the late 1950s, they were larger and faster than previous planes<\/a>, needing longer runways and more space to park and maneuver on the tarmac. They carried more passengers, which meant boarding gates had to be bigger. This led to the now-familiar design called \u201cpier-finger terminals<\/a>,\u201d with a main terminal screening passengers and collecting checked luggage, beyond which lay long stretches of boarding gates, spaced far enough apart for planes to fit side by side. Atlanta, Chicago and Miami<\/a> airports all were criticized for making passengers walk nearly half a mile<\/a> from ticketing to their gates.<\/p>\n

Eero Saarinan, designer of classic jet-age terminals at Dulles and Kennedy airports, proposed two different answers. At Dulles, outside Washington, D.C., he called for large, bus-like vehicles<\/a> to move passengers from the terminal directly to their airplanes. Called \u201cmobile lounges<\/a>,\u201d they\u2019re now being phased out in favor of another system billed as more future-oriented: an underground train<\/a>.<\/p>\n