Originally Posted by
mikebg
Well, what happened was that they thought that loads of people would go shopping in the landside mall as you could go there without security, so people accompanying passengers and just about anyone else would want to go shopping there. However, this never happened, as I guess the shops were more expensive than the shops in conventional malls, and of course no traveler was going to shop there if they could get the same duty free 5 minutes later so the whole thing turned out to be a rather big commercial disaster instead of the goldmine it was expected to be.
On the other side the security specifications were changed shortly before the airport opened, with far more space required than in the original plans, so much more space was needed for security. I guess that they are now going to use the wasted space from the hopeless landside mall for more checkin facilities, which are desperately required, as per ebzed's post.
Interesting. In any case, the shops there were really not interesting..... Newspapers stands, coffee shops and one or two small boutiques, that was almost all...
Regarding the security specifications, I do not see any change compared to what prevailed in the old terminal. But I remember that a very short time before the opening of T3, a totally new security procedure was announced for BGN. The security "interviews" were going to be supressed, and brand new machines introduced. One consequence was that passengers could not be accompanied by non-flying family members or friends at security and check-in, as was the case before. As a first stage, this new system was introduced only for El Al flights, and for that matter the El Al area in the old check-in hall was modified. Shortly after the introduction of this new system, the hijacking attempt of an El Al flight to Turkey took place.
In any case, this "new system" was not applied to other airlines and was not even maintained for El Al as we are back to the very usual "interviews". The only difference compared to the situation in the old terminal is that 100% of the checked-in luggage goes effectively through a security machine - and not only the luggage of "suspicious" passengers.