I've never seen it terribly bad, but the lack of an elite line is a real pain. The family/medical liquids line always seems to move fastest.

Your "Easts" and "Wests" are confused -- the new international terminal is A-West, and there are still some international gates in A-East along with AA and, for now, DL. AF departs out of a gate that is technically in A-West directly across from the US and BA lounges. AF 365/366 is switching to a DL 757 after the summer anyway, so where AF is located now is immaterial.

I have heard (maybe here) that FL is being moved to E. The FL gates are right next to UA, so maybe CO moves there and DL gets the old CO/WN gates? There are also a couple of empty gates in D (or at least there were the last time I was there).

I think the motivation is in part to give US unfettered access to all of the international gates in A-East, because I think DL was occupying one of them. US has added three more international flights this summer. WN has stopped expanding at PHL for now and may not need additional gates (the reason why DL moved from E to A-East to begin with).

They are supposedly building a new SkyClub in D (the current one is less than two years old, I think).

If DL does move over to D, I wonder what'll happen with ticket counter space. Right now, there's just no room for another airline downstairs.

And as much as I enjoy having CO agents service CO flights, the agents at PHL are so horrible (they don't have anything on EWR!) I wouldn't mind another carrier like US taking over their gate/ticket counter work.

(i.e.: agent in Philly last week addressed the handicapped passengers at boarding as "lets get the f'ing cripples onboard now", where she definitely didn't censor her use of the F word there. Also loved it when passengers looked at her with disgust because of her vocabulary and attitude, only to get a "what are you looking at, &itch!" Gotta' love that South Philly lovin'!

sounds like a local from the 'city of brotherly love' without a doubt. I've never flow into PHL (till next week) but that attitude doesn't surprise me when I drove through there before it was just like that.

Corrected I stand on the two sides of A. I've never flown from there (just C and D for me that I remember), and I was basing my writing on a terminal map. And to the point of the AF bird not coming to PHL anymore, I can only shudder at the thought of the losses AF was taking. If the DL TATL 752 comes to that route, it's a loss of 24J and 21Y from the AF A332. Market adjustments, anyone?

Moving FL to E would make sense only if there was enough space to accommodate FL and all of WN. What is WN's motivation in having a separate part of their operation? That to me is just as odd as DL wanting to be in D...why be away from what little SkyTeam presence PHL already has? The deal on square footage must be that good, especially if they are replacing a ~2 year old lounge.

DL would continue to occupy an international gate with the CDG flight, no?

WN got gates in D originally because they were available and WN needed gates (US had them before they started shrinking). I don't know why the airport didn't move NW or DL or both to D, which would have made more sense.

I also don't think DL "wants" to be in D ... but there's not enough space to consolidate the new DL's flights without playing musical airlines in D and E, I guess. And given that the AF 332 is going away and CO is moving to *A, the SkyTeam presence in PHL will be DL and DL only.



On the way in. On the way out, they'd tow the plane to D and use a gate there. This would allow them to consolidate their operations and use their own lounge (AF actually uses the US Envoy lounge, or at least they did when I flew them last year). AF used to do this a couple of years ago (depart from a DL gate in E, arrive at an international gate in A somewhere).

ETA that the DL 752 is supposed to arrive really early -- around 1:30 pm -- which means that it shouldn't interfere with US's transatlantic operations. It makes the DL CDG-PHL useless for European connections going westbound, but that's a different issue.

Sounds like par for the course with Teh New DL. Maybe they can fill a 752 on all O&D, good for them if they can.

I wonder how the checkpoints at C and B were at that time. Saturday AM = mostly leisure traffic, leisure traffic = LCCs like Airtran and Southwest. I'm hoping to guess C and B were pretty empty, which would be a great route to go at those times...

I think I remember on another post about someone mentioning a parking deal at PHL with a coupon in this month's CO magazine. Does anyone have the details for which company it is?

Last time I flew CO out of PHL (mid march), I avoided the line by walking over to the A/B US security line, where there was a status line. PHL is now all connected airside, so it may be worth the hike if E/D is insane.

The coupon is good for 2 free days at AviStar and FastTrack (also SkyPark at EWR).

The NWA site says NW is moving to terminal A-East from E by November 17... but DL people at PHL airport are still telling people they're moving over to terminal D ...and that CO is losing a gate in D.

Has anyone heard anything more? The CO people in PHL don't seem to know much about anything.

Agreed

After the E extension is finished, at current levels WN and FL should both be able to co-occupy it. FL has 4 gates and only needs 2 of them so the city is likely trying to get them out of D. Also WN will eventually move out of its 4 gates in D to consolidate in E.

DL/NW need to figure something out with regards to gate space in PHL. Neither occupies enough gates to handle the full DL/NW operation. DL 3 or 4 in A and NW 3 in E with ~40 flights a day.

I doubt CO is going to lose a gate in PHL, unless they start to use UA gates during some of the non peak times.

They have been using UA gates at non peak times for some months now. At least as far back as February.