Originally Posted by
Kumulani
They really should have built Terminal A to be able to handle international arrivals. Then they would not be running into all these issues with Terminal E now. Delta would not have to do this BS where they dump off international arriving passengers at E and then tow back to A for departure. Their partners could have relocated to A as well, which would make connections easier and free up more room at E...
Originally Posted by
Kumulani
Maybe there's space, but do the gates actually have the capability to separate arriving and departing passengers? I don't remember seeing this. Then again, I fly out of Teminal A very rarely, so easily could have missed it. However, if not, then there would need to be some serious building work done to accomodate this. And the satellite wouldn't be able to handle international arrivals unless there's a separate sterile tunnel.
It's not just Delta; it's pretty much every U.S. airline that flies internationally. AA international flights arrive at E, leave from B. What's more, this is standard operating procedure at every U.S. airport I've arrived at except ATL, which is basically a DL fortress. Staffing multiple terminals for international arrivals is too expensive to be practical and would require shuffling lots of people back and forth during the day to balance workloads. International terminals don't generally have space for all the flights they'd need to hold if aircraft stayed there until they were ready to depart. That would also require duplicate airline departure operations (check-in positions, gates, etc.). If you look at it from the overall system level, the current solution is the best even though it doesn't optimize each piece locally.
(BTW, Logan A reconfiguration to isolate arriving and departing pax is no more complicated than what LHR T3 dealt with successfully. There was construction, such as a barrier down the middle of the walkway between the near and far terminals, but IIRC nothing structural.) If anything, Logan TA has more room to work with.)