Originally Posted by
aviation425
Thank you for the update. I just realized, the gates on the 70's concourse are attached to these small connectors before being connected to the terminal, but the 80's gates are not. That's interesting.
The 70's have connectors prior to the jetway because the vehicle circulation road runs in front of the nose of the plane up against the terminal building, which is the standard practice for the majority of airports outside of North America, as it increases efficiency on the apron by not having ground vehicles be in the way of aircraft pulling into and pushing out of gates. However, the 80's gates have the vehicle circulation road behind the tail of the aircraft, the usual layout for airports in North America. I'm not sure why the architects chose different methods for the two concourses.