N830MH

http://triblive.com/news/2710558-74/...#axzz28a4YXSvd

Is PIT wants to get a proper permission from TSA to open airmall to public?

zigzagg900

They need to. That place is like a ghost town. But are they going to let people go in without boarding passes?

buckeyefanflyer

Great idea, who cares If a non flyer is on any list. These people
people are not flying.

lovely15

That doesn't stop them from harassing people.

Wally Bird

The only way to do this is to move the TSA checkpoints airside of the mall. Nobody is going to want to be irradiated/frisked/harassed/threatened just to shop.

Ysitincoach

Now you'd think, being a government agency they'd be all for this, in an attempt to process more people, more numbers, pad the statistics==more staff, more equipment, more money.

Why wouldn't they want that? Like FAA's air traffic control, the center supervisors love us general aviation folks, as it pads their numbers, and goes through the same cycle as above==more staff, more equipment, more of your tax money & user fees.

jkhuggins

Unfortunately, IIRC, this isn't possible with the way PIT is laid out.

PIT was specifically designed as a destination shopping mall that also happened to serve as a major hub airport. Merchants were specifically required to offer their wares at competitive prices, not the jacked-up prices typical of restricted access markets like airports, so that folks would come out to the airport and shop.

Of course, this was in 1992. Then 9/11 happened, access to the concourse was denied to (most) non-passengers, and the whole "mall" idea pretty much fell apart.

The airside terminal has the AirMall at the hub of four spokes. The only way to move TSA airside of the mall would be to install four full checkpoints, one at the entrance to each spoke --- and that would require that connecting passengers with arrival and departure gates on different concourses would have to pass through screening once again.

PIT's architecture was designed with a 1990's mentality regarding air travel in mind --- which is, regrettably, incompatible with the current mentality.

WillCAD

I've never been to PIT, but I'm sure that some connector corridors could be built on the sterile side that would allow travelers to get from one spoke to another without exiting the sterile area. Looking at the terminal maps, I see both a lower level for international arrivals, and a mezzanine. Perhaps one of them could be linked to the sterile areas of the 4 spokes with minimal construction costs, allowing travelers to make their connections without going through screening again.

jkhuggins

Remember, though, that the international arrival area is decidedly non-"sterile", because passengers have access to their bags as they pass through customs. Dumping passengers into that area is no better than dumping them back into the mall. (I have no idea about the mezzanine.)

guflyer

I remember reading about this desire for PIT a while ago, but nothing came about. Back then it made sense--when it was only WTMD, it was not a real inconvenience for most travelers to pass through security en route to the mall. I remember going to the Cairns airport in Australia and seeing the sign specifically stating that non-passengers are allowed in secured areas (I think as an encouragement to shop).

In the era of body scanners, it does not seem to be desirable for one to pass security to go shopping anymore (although perhaps these body scanners could double as the body scanners that determine one's clothing size, which I have read about in the past).

I could also foresee there being issues related to cases where a person refuses a pat-down. Asking the passenger "do you want to go to the mall today" does not seem to provide the authority of "do you want to fly today" as most people would rather not shop at a mall than continue through a security search. What happens when mall customers, who are not travelers, try to leave instead of opting to receive a pat-down?

Regarding the architecture of the airport--it defeats the point of an airport mall to have it outside of security. One of the points of it is usually to allow passengers to shop. Retail sales passed the security perimeter have gone down since it became more of a hassle to pass through security checkpoints, and I doubt that most connecting passengers would be willing to go through security again in order to shop at the mall.

VelvetJones

If you never had been there then why comment? No, you cannot make connectors between the sterile area because the mall makes up the majority of the sterile area. PIT is basically an X, with a some shops in the small middle area, but the rest are scattered down each of the four gate corridors. This idea is ridiculous, as even if this changes were approved no one would go there. The only reason it made even the slightest sense in 1992 was that there were no major shopping centers in the vicinity. That has changed dramatically in the last 15 years. Even if we want back to pre-9/11 screen no one would drive in to the airport, pay to park, and then have their rights violated at a checkpoint just to shop at the same store that is also in a mall a few miles away.

InkUnderNails

Being a guy and a committed non-shopper, I do not understand this concept. Our shopping job (stereotype intended) is to run it, kill it and drag it home. I know for what I am looking, what it costs, where it is and the store in which it resides.

PIT is not exactly on the way to anywhere the best I remember. It is an airport and requires vast amounts of land for facilities and the immediate area is usually full of airport type stuff like parking, rental cars, gas stations, restaurants and hotels.

To me it seems a poor business model to ask shoppers to drive out of their way, in a congested area, pay to park, walk a long way or ride a train, put up with thousands of people wanting to get on an airplane (it is an airport primarily) or get home after being on an airplane just to buy stuff that is guaranteed to be no worse than regular mall prices.

Why not just go to the mall?

I do not understand why anyone but a government bureaucrat would think this is a good concept. Sorry, just answered my own question.

Ysitincoach

I don't think this will attract shoppers away from Robinson Town Center to PIT. Instead, you'll have people wanting to see family members off at the gate making casual PIT mall purchases.

Majuki

Is there any word on which retailers will partner with the TSA for Precheck access? I've heard that the Rite Aid has looked into this already for its loyalty card holders, but I don't know if I want to give the TSA access to my purchases.

In all seriousness, the Air Mall made sense 20 years ago when PIT was a major US hub. At current traffic levels, I can see why the retailers are in need of business, but I don't know anyone who will drive out to Moon Township, pay for parking and go through the security line at PIT just to shop at this world class list of retailers.

mahohmei

Yet another issue brought about only because of the TSA. I've never liked flying, but before 9/11, airport security was a nonissue to me. It was just like going to City Hall or the courthouse, and we'd all go through to pick up or drop off passengers directly at the gate.

If I woke up tomorrow morning and the TSA was no longer requiring a BP to access the "sterile" area, I would not suddenly start going through the TSA to do airport pickups and dropoffs like it was 9/10.

I've always thought that airport authorities (PANYNJ, etc) should be leading the lobbying effort to eliminate the TSA (or at least revert to exactly 9/10). I realize that people don't go to airports to dine or shop alone--it's almost always a passenger, pickup, dropoff, or before 9/11, visiting a connecting friend. Still, the loss of these visitors from airside vendors probably represents a pretty sharp drop in sales.

Or is it still blasphemous to say out loud, in the Senate or House chamber, that the TSA does absolutely nothing to improve security?