Status and condition of LAX Terminal Facilities
 

I flew Virgin America from LAX last year (From Terminal 6). I found that concourse/terminal to be be very dated and feel very ancient--very similar to Terminal C at BOS, Concourse C/D at IAD, and others.

At JFK, American's old Terminals 8 and 9 felt this way until the new terminal opened up in 2005. So even at JFK now most of the terminals (1,4,5,7,8) feel modern--Delta's 2/3 complex being the sole exception.

I guess my question is about the status of the other terminals at LAX (since I don't fly from there regularly). Are they all in as bad shape as 6?

The international terminal at LAX was in pretty poor (embarrassingly so?) shape for a while too! Now it looks nice, if a bit industrial, after the recent renovations were completed. I think the immigration/customs facilities are actually reasonably efficiently laid out these days too.

Here's to hoping for more renovation airport-wide!

I was in terminal 7 on Sunday, and the same situation exists there. Because the restrooms in the RCC were closed for renovation, I had to use the one in the terminal, which was a disgrace.

Washingtonian819, welcome to FlyerTalk. Your Q. would be a great one for our Travel->Los Angeles forum, and I'll move it there. Ocn Vw 1K, Moderator, TravelBuzz.

Terminals 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 andd 7 were built in the early 1960's.

T1 and the TBIT were built in time for the 1984 Olympiad.

T2 (the international terminal before TBIT) was rebuilt around 1984. T4 was extensively refurbished in about 2000, and T5 was extensively refurbished around 1988 (when Delta acquired Western Airlines). AFAIK Terminals 3, 6 and 7 have not been extensively remodeled (corrections welcome).

I looked up a little more on the renovations, they just spent over $700 million on TBIT in the renovations scheduled 2007-2010 (which seem almost done these days). And supposedly there is $11 billion overall slated through 2015 for airport upgrades (but most of that would be outside the terminals, I'd assume).

Anyway, glad to see they are working on LAX, it'd be nice to have it back to some of its former glory.

You are incorrect. T-3 has not been extensively remodeled since TWA had a stronghold there. On the other hand, T6 and T7/8 (which really function as one) have had extensive changes. Remember that T6 was just that outer rotunda of gates with tunnels from the landside portion. In the 1980s, CO built the connector building, which added a bunch of gates and concessions. As for T7/8, United extensively remodeled them (though not to the extent AA did T4) in the late 1990s.

I hate flying internationally through LAX. Downstairs, the place is ugly,, probably the ugliest place I've ever flown through. Going through Customs at TBIT or UA T7 at LAX is a throwback to the 80's - with the dropped ceilings, florescent lights, faux-wood panelling, and government-issue signs

The food selection is pretty lousy as well - would rather fly through SFO if I had a choice, cooler food choices there.

Just my thoughts....

-j

In all fairness, as much as I detest clearing customs at TBIT, the improvements there make for a much nicer experience. The immigration area (complete) and baggage claim (mostly complete, IIRC) look great. The exit area is still being worked on so it's a construction site, but one can definitely see huge improvements to a building that was barely touched since it was constructed in the early 80s.

Actually, the original oval shaped satellite buildings in Terminals 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 date back to the original design of LAX. While the satellite in T-5 was essentially consumed by the DL rebuild of that facility, I believe it still actually exists, while some satellites are essentially untouched in (T-3 and T-6) or used in better fashion (T-4 and T-7). It is my understanding that the connector buildings between the ticketing areas and the satellite buildings (usually containing the first several gates one sees in the concourse), as well as the upper departure level driveway along with TBIT, T-1 and T-2 were all built for the 1984 Olympics.

Sad to say that from that time until just a few years ago, very little has been done to actually improve the facility. Fortunately the TBIT renovations are nearly complete and hopefully some other improvements (TBIT West) will be coming soon. Preceeding the TBIT improvements, in the early 2000's T-4 was extensively renovated and before that was the rebuild of T-5 in the mid 80s.

There was a line in a LA Times column a few months ago. It said something like..."I dropped my daughter off at LAX. That's the place where we go when we need to fly somewhere. Someday we will get a real airport. " :D

Anyone who would write that needs to fly out of SJC sometime. I still can't believe that the second biggest city in California doesn't have jetways in at least one of its terminals...

Update re TBIT Customs area... the construction continues to move along... I cleared customs two days ago and the traffic now splits in two directions immediately after clearing... Local passengers go left to exit the building, connecting passengers go right to recheck their bags. Every time I go thru I see improvements here and there as the updates are completed and revealed.

LAX is doing some seriously good work on the update of TBIT (at least the areas that I have seen)... Entry and ticketing area is done, food court being redone, Immigration is done, baggage in customs mostly done, exit from customs mostly done, greeting area mostly done. (I never see the gate areas so I have no idea there...)

Is it the best facility? Eh... maybe.. maybe not... but it's a vast improvement over what it used to be *and* it's not complete yet.

Since Los Angeles is not Washington, we don't have the gold-plated Federally-funded modern infrastructure that your area enjoys. We are a stepchild. You have the new IAD, Metro, the Kennedy Center, Wolf Trap, etc. etc. Compare the public library in any DC suburb with a typical Los Angeles County branch library, if you can find one that's open.

We have no federally-operated entertainment venues. The fact that L.A. has a new concert hall is due to the largess of local private donors. LAX Airport's problems are obvious. We are building some new transit lines, but they are bare-bones in design, unlike the soaring architecture of a DC Metro station.

Move the national capital to Los Angeles, and we'll build a palatial airport and other grand public works in the style that you've become accustomed to.

What glory was that? I must have missed it. But then, I've only been flying into and out of LAX since the late 1980s.

The public library in places such as Evanston and Northbrook, IL or Bethesda and Silver Spring, MD (to talk about the D.C. suburbs) are funded in much the same way as L.A. suburban libraries. But they are around 1000 times better. It's not the financing, it is the local political system and the endless propaganda about how taxes are too high. Plus, there is a certain lack of involvement by local citizens in California.

As to the Disney Hall, although certainly there were very large private donations (thank you Disneys and Mr. Broad) L.A. County paid for a very large hunk of the construction via various subsidies and has now taken the Hall over because it was about to go under.

As to airports, you are right--L.A. does not get even close to its fair share of federal money. But, a large part of the problem is the desire of the City to use LAX to give big bucks to favored contractors/contributors to campaigns (al la Chicago) and, again, the lack of citizen oversight. Admittedly, the system of governance for LAX has been set up to be tough for citizens to understand or do anything about.