Is T6 Shut Down?
 

Hi All-

I flew out of JFK last Friday and I noticed that T6 had no jetBlue aircraft parked at its gates (there were of course a few planes, though not many, parked at T5). I also noticed that a BA 747 and the Open Skies 757 were hard-standed in front of T6's western-most gates, around 3-7, though were not parked at the jetways (they were parked parallel with the Alpha & Bravo taxiways short of Whiskey). Does anyone know what the deal is with T6 and the temporary "Trailer Park" terminal? What are the plans for its use now with T5 open? Is it officially shut down?

Thanks for any insight!

The trailer park will be demolished to open up access to the five gates it is currently blocking.

As for the old T6, there are no current plans that I am aware of to have planes operating out of it, though that can always change if demand at JFK picks up.

What does hard-standed mean?

As of right now T6 (original) is closed up. I've heard that a couple of gates are still being used for over night parking and maybe to park planes should another winter storm move in but as of right now T6 is a ghost terminal.

It means a plane that is not on a gate. IE: may have airstairs connected to it or may be buttoned up for the night, as in not in use.

Heard today, from Chief Pilot, T6 will be demolished. All the way to the ground. Rumor is Delta is trying to block this as they want to add more flights and would like to use T6 for their Northwest merger.

So......Delta wants to use T2, T3, and T6. Seems like a hassle. Plus I think we have dibs on first refusal for anything that goes on with T6.

I have a nice 2hr sit in JFK tomorrow so I get to explore T5 for some time!! I'm stoked. I didn't think I was heading there till early next week but the sooner the better.

If you fly through JFK and see all those aircraft parked out in front of T3 and T4, those are hard-stands. You usually see Delta, El Al, Air India, JetBlue parked out there.

Delta & T6
 

I wonder if Delta thought about requested T6 be marked as a landmark (it was designed by IM PEI ) I believe , so that B6 cannot tear it down. Although in reality only gates 1-8 may be usable with T5 . Perhaps B6 should tear down T6 and then let DL put up a 6 gate temporary terminal (like T6') so B6 can make some money on this deal.

I see them.

So it means planes that are parked, but not at a gate?

T6 was designed by IM Pei but does not currently have landmark status. The only terminal at JFK that has the landmark designation is T5, which is why the new T5 had to be built behind the old TWA Flight Center.

T6 is architecturally distinguished but perhaps not as unique as Saarinen's T5 to merit landmark designation.

Also, this is not the first time T6 has been shut down, so it is not inconceivable that it may return to use in the future.

I don't know who designed T3, but the "Flying Saucer" roof line and its brief status as the world's largest airline terminal give it some historical cache and make it pretty miserable for modern usage. From what I've read the original T6 doesn't have much to recommend it historically and had some work to make it usable by JetBlue, so I can't imagine that an effort to get it a historical landmark designation would be successful.

I cannot imagine Delta making a successful go of operating out of the three terminals without a reasonable air-side connection, though I suppose a fleet of buses could solve that problem. But they can also just leave NW in T4 and bus folks from there if they need to, so I'm not sure what T6 gets them unless they really want to build up service from there, and I'm not yet convinced that is on the roadmap for the newly merged mega-airline that the NW/DL combination will bring us.

The Flying Saucer was built in 1960 and designed by Ives, Turano & Gardner Associated Architects and Walter Prokosch of Tippets-Abbett-McCarthy-Stratton.

This soon proved far too small a facility for Pan Am's NYC hub and an expansion was built in 1972. The interconnection between the two buildings is very poor indeed, although most of what is today T-3 is the 1972 expansion built behind the Flying Saucer.

If DL really ends up using T-6 this would be one of the more inconvenient transfers around, one which would put the CO EWR Terminal C to A or the US DCA airside bus transfer to shame.

Regarding the NYC landmarking process, I doubt T-6 would pass muster although it was built by a starchitect (Pei) and could be a wonderful building if adequately renovated and modernized.

Personally, though, I would rank the Flying Saucer ahead of T-6 as a piece of architecture, even if the Flying Saucer is not nearly the masterpiece that T-5 is.

PanAm's "Flying saucer" which is the "root" of T3 may be miserable by today's standards, but when it was built at the height of the cold war, it was seen as enough of a provocation by the USSR for them to rush to have one too:
The carbon copy of the original small T3 (4 gates for 707s if I remember well) is still in existence at Moscow Sheremetyevo's Terminal 1 which is being used by the baby-Aeroflots. Its condition is pretty dismal.

T-3 also in part inspired TWA to commission Eero Saarinen to design T-5.

Also, it's fair to say that T-3 before the expansion was a much cleaner, sharper piece of architecture.

Of the remaining old-line terminals at JFK none is worse as architecture than T-2, the horrid metal box of built for Northwest and Northeast Airlines in the early 60's