What do the British Call a Jetway?
 

A simple little question I'm sure, but nevertheless one that escapes me!

Is there a British term for the word Jetway?

The best we could do was covered bridge and I'm sure there must be a better term that isn't a trademark!

Many thaks,

Regards

JC

Jet Bridge?

It used to be called a Pier

I've also heard it called airbridge as well as pier.

Hi,

I have heard it being called the airbridge.

Regards

TBS

As The British had :Airbridges and Piers before the Americans had Jets. They were originally known as Piers and then Later as AirBrdges.

London Gatwick Airport has been around for over 70 years and it has always been ahead of its time. Its first innovation was a direct link for passengers between the airport and the nearby rail station. 20 years later its second innovation was to build a covered pier from the terminal to aircraft stands, which became a standard feature of airport design.

Some things only change slightly..Gatwick now has the Largest Bridge in The Air at any International Airport.

http://www.oasys-software.com/about/...dge_02-200.png

Thanks guys, much appreciated.

Air Bridge sounds good to me! :)

JC

As noted above, the official term used by the BAA is "pier".

A good reason to call it an airbridge, I reckon ;)

Doesn't pier refer more to a collection of airbridges? I always think of it in connection with a set of stands... the Victor pier etc.

I thought that they called them HSBCs ;)

Yes on both counts.

Much like the term "wicket" in cricket, "pier" can mean a lot of things in the same context. :)

For example pier 3 at Gatwick has 8 piers.

Piers are allocated by a department called stand planning who refer to remote stands as stands and terminal stands as piers. There is no department called pier planning.

It seems confusing on paper, but you figure it out quickly enough. :)

This reminds me of my high school history class. The teacher had mentioned something about some war or another, saying "20,000 troops were deployed." A student asked "How many men are in a troop?"

The correct answer is "airbridge". Jetway is a trade name of the FMC Jetway Corporation who are a major manufacturer of airbridges.

A pier is a building structure, like a pier into the sea, usually an integral part of the terminal building althoufgh there are a few freestanding ones around. Piers can have aircraft on one or both sides. Most commonly there are a number of airbridges at gates along the pier.

Although most gates have one airbridge there are a few which are used for widebody aircraft which have two airbridges, allowing two streams of passengers to enter an aircraft at once through separate aircraft doors.

The pier constructed at Gatwick when the new airport opened in 1958 was a simple structure out across the ramp with aircraft on both sides. You still had to go out and walk across the ramp to aircraft steps.

It is ambiguous to say Gatwick has been around for 70 years. It was opened in 1936 but fell into disuse within a couple of years because, although it had a novel terminal building and its own rail station, the runways were still grass and they suffered from extensive flooding in winter, and all airlines withdrew services. In 1958 a new airport opened using part of the same site, but it had a new railway station in a different place and a new, resited terminal. The 1930s circular terminal building, generally known as "The Beehive", has been offices for many years now.

And if they have a number of them at an airport, do they call the terminal a House of Piers?