Originally Posted by
Mahogany
I think it’s more of an airport design problem. There’s no graceful way to wait at C and D gates because the space is very limited. On one side there’s walkway and you can’t block people from walking down the terminal, and the other side is the gate. With several 739 load of passengers… best solution is to get to the gate just in time.
Agreed.
And it seems many non-US airports deliberately design it this way to encourage loitering/waiting/lounging in a central shopping/dining area, and duty free. (I seem to remember a few airports where gates were no more than jetbridges leading off of narrow hallways, with minimal-or-no gate-adjacent seating to be found. When it was time to board, one would leave the central area and get in line in the hallway leading to the jetbridge.) Of course, these airports compensate by having a very capacious central area, which SEA does not.
Actually, I wonder what the ratio of "area" to "average passenger volume" is, and how that compares to peer airports.