DenverBrian

They'll keep expanding, presumably - The B concourse has 10 more gates on the west side they can do - and then there are always concourses D and E, which are in the original plans.

TravellingMan

I realize having a walkway between the terminals was also part of the original plans. Wonder if that will ever come to light?

I think the current management of the airport has made a mess of this once beautiful airport. It was wide and spacious and now with the construction, we are going to see endless shops selling junk with limited maneuverability. Each shop will have space around it cordoned off and more ipads equipped tables. Sheesh.

The useless "disco" lights at the exit of the airport is a good indicator of the tackiness of the current management.

dilanesp

Well if you don't like the disco lights you can always walk through the connector tunnel at ORD instead.

DenverBrian

I don't recall a walkway between concourses as ever being in the plans. Part of a huge litany of mistakes at DIA.

Pena Boulevard opened in 1994 with only two lanes in each direction, and I stated then that it should have been three, as it would only get more expensive over time to put the lanes in. Here we are in 2019; still two lanes in each direction for the only real way in or out of DIA, and the road clogs regularly.

The airport opened with the ridiculous toll plazas ala DFW, and those lasted all of three years. The parking was woefully undersized from the beginning, and they were supposed to include car rental curbside, but that went out the window with the mis-forecasted parking, so now we have ridiculous shuttle buses back and forth.

The "disco" lights were put in because they though they could sell ads on those boards - again, ridiculous and illegal since Pena Boulevard received federal funds. So now half the lights are out and it looks like crap.

The Westin hotel "moustache" ruins the original lines of the soaring mountain roof.

The construction will at least put security in one place and open Level 5's Great Hall back up.

nddomer04

And yet the Wall St Journal just rated Denver International Airport #1 in the country. Clearly they're doing something right...

nddomer04

And this article says that United is going to use "a nine-gate temporary extension of concourse A during construction on B, says Adams. The works require demolishing a 12-gate regional finger on the east end of B and rebuilding it for mainline aircraft." https://www.flightglobal.com/news/ar...xpansi-451133/

DenverBrian

Nice find on that article - and this pic shows in blue/green where the new gates will go. I've also added in red where future concourses D and E will eventually go. No other airport in the country has this much available space for expansion.

Bonehead

Yeah, and make the walk from the Transit Center to security much longer (when coming in on the "A" rail line in order to circumvent the high parking rates @:-))

My knees aren't getting any younger...

drewguy

I believe Dulles Airport has room not only for an E/F concourse, but theoretically a G/H concourse as well. Of course, not in our lifetime, as even turning the "temporary" C/D concourse into something permanent is going to take at least another 10 years, and the traffic to justify E/F clearly isn't there yet.

DenverBrian

And I bet it's not as many potential gates as DIA.

TravellingMan

DEN has its version of the ORD connector tunnel (albeit with no lights) when you walk from international arrivals to immigration. It is different but does make it interesting to make the walk.

It seems they ran out of cash and that plan was thrown out of the window too.

Makes me wonder about their criteria or other US airports even worse?

That's my biggest pet peeve with the latest changes. They should have made all transit drop offs at the same level as check-in or baggage claim; instead we have transit moved down into a dungeon and make you drag your bags through open escalators (which have wind tunnel effect). Whereas if you were to get picked up or dropped off it is right there. So the whole point of making transit convenient is lost as they have made it as inconvenient as possible. Indicates that people who never take transit, design it for people who take transit.

ExplorerWannabe

The only thing I like about DIA is when it's my first point of entry returning from overseas. A Polaris or Arrivals Lounge would be most welcome in those circumstances. The WSJ ranking it #1 just made me lose respect for the WSJ. I'm just glad that I usually fly out of a regional airport and use DIA as a connection point. The last 2 times I had to actually drive to DIA were exercises in frustration and annoyance.

DenverBrian

Well, for inconvenience, the A line wins that award hands down given its propensity to stop in the middle of the prairie and just sit there for two hours at a go.

Denver is a car city, not a "transit" city. It's natural the airport's bones are geared towards car travel and not train travel.

drewguy

Probably true - I think the length of concourse at DIA is longer than the length at IAD. (It's actually surprising to me the theoretical expansion possibilities are as large as they are at IAD, although as mentioned pretty nebulous)

DENviaLAX

The funny thing is that after all the construction is finished, there will be the exact same number of gates as beforehand. The only difference is there will be more mainline capable gates.

But the biggest change is that its looking like UA will insource all the BTW UAX work pretty soon, which will allow better gate utilization in the future. You could see RJs being parked almost anywhere on the B concourse. Combined with a more efficient operation once the UAX vendor (Menzies) goes away, things should run a bit more smoothly. Or at least not get worse as the number of flights increases as dramatically as it will be.