PSA: avoid SLC like the plague
 

First post-rona trip through SLC this weekend. DL LAS-SLC yesterday was okay, except the jetway was inoperable when we pulled up.... 4th flight in a row with jetway issues, but i digress....

TODAY, AA SLC-DFW, I discovered comedy value unmeasurable with current technology..... i think the distance from Hertz to B15 must be close to a kilometer, and i'm not kidding.

yes, the first remote pier airport in history built without a people mover... it does exist, in Great Salt Lake City Utah.

NEVER fly any airline other than Delta in to SLC. Every other airline is now operating out of Terminal B, aka Siberia, Utah. With zero real estate pressure and miles of open land to the north, the idiots that thought this was an acceptable design should be drawn, quartered, shot, and if there is any electrical activity at all remaining in their spinal cords, dunked in caustic soda, just to be sure. "People are just going to have to arrive earlier" is the statement I heard repeated by <redacted> staff parroting what must be the party line. I witnessed a dozen elderly folks about to COLLAPSE AND DIE halfway down the tunnel under the tarmac, 30 minutes in to their hike aka attempt to Summit Terminal B. There were 30 people in wheelchairs waiting to be pushed down the tunnel. Just fricking insane. Unbelievable.

Note to the stAAf at GSW: i am a paid F customer and I will never willingly fly any airline other than DL to SLC for the remainder of my life, as the word is an APM like Atlanta (1981), Denver (1995) and every other remote pier airport BUILT IN THE HISTORY OF PLANET EARTH is, in Great Salt Lake City, at least "10-15 years away".

Ludicrous. Unbelievable. Add 1 hour to your AA, UL or WN ingress/egress at SLC.

I'm still in disbelief.

Why is there a need to add an hour, you said it was a 1 Km to Hertz from B15. That's about 12 minutes.

According to this map:

https://slcairport.com/assets/pdfDoc...-Distances.pdf

The tunnel is 1200 feet long (0.37km), and the longest walk from the terminal entrance to the farthest gate is 3350 feet (1.02km), so your estimate of 1km from Hertz sounds reasonable. According to the map the 3350 foot walk should take about 15 minutes without using any of the moving walkways. I'd routinely cover that distance in about 10 minutes, but I'm a fast walker.

I was just through there a couple of weeks ago for the first time in several years and I was amazed that they would remodel the airport and not put any kind of people movers in the new construction.

It's definitely a haul form the AA gates to the car rental facility...

They had a choice, build a public fitness facility or just not install people movers. Bean counters opted for the latter.

If you think it’s bad now you should have seen it a year ago. I was shocked when I took a rare Coronavirus era authorized work flight last December on Delta. The new concourse was barely open. No where to eat. And no oxygen bars after hiking between the circus tent where the regional jet shuttle bus dumps you off and the new terminal. Delta was scheduling 35 minute connections. That’s as close as I’ve come to passing out when reaching the plane.

The journey was almost worse in April when more people were flying but only 2 restaurants open. Lines were crazy long waiting to get in.

The DL experience at SLC is even worse than before especially if flying on a Connection flight. Instead of the former “bus terminal” building that was used for these flights which was at least connected to the rest of the concourses, they are now using remote stands and busses. Might as well just plan on being rebooked if your inbound flight is delayed and you are connecting to/from a Connection flight at one of the remote stands.

SLC based here. Keep in mind DL uses gates in B as well, albeit connection flights generally. My last trip was on AA, before that one, on WN and DL. A is closer, yes, but the others from B was fine for me. To each their own…

The thought was that the current airport misery is worth the something like $100 million the airport authority is saving by not doing a more phased demolition of the old terminal complex and rebuilding. So the users of the facility are just expected to deal with current chaos as air travel has rebounded a lot quicker than they expected when decisions were made in the summer of 2020 under the assumption that airport passenger count would be really off for 2-3 more years.

And that's fair. But the decision to build a remote pier airport in the 21st century without an APM train operational on Day 1 is easily the worst decision in the 107 year history of commercial aviation.

The 2nd-worst decision was deciding not to build an APM train AT ALL in Phase 2 or any time in the near future at a brand new remote pier airport built in the 21st century. The below graphic shows the footprint for the trains, they just decided not to build them. At all. For "several decades at the earliest".

https://slcairport.com/assets/The-Ne...MwMCw0MDBd.jpg

So similar in walking distances to the distances one would walk on connections between the farthest apart AA gates at places like CLT, PHL, ORD. Also without people mover / trains.

I walked at a decent pace and timed it. I went from gate B15 to the Lyft pickup zone in 15 minutes. It was a decent hike but nothing horrible. They did have an open cart shuttle in the tunnel. It would have added time but cut down on the walking for those that have trouble walking long distances. I didn't find the experience particularly off-putting.

SLC-based here. The OP is a bit dramatic, but yes it is currently a long hike due to the fact that the CURRENT tunnel is a TEMPORARY one until the main tunnel is complete in a few years. The main tunnel will be more centrally located in the overall design of the airport, which will significantly cut down on the time needed to walk to the other concourse. An APM really won't be necessary when the main tunnel is complete, but will be if an additional concourse gets added well into the future. I will say that the airport's administration did woefully underestimate the traffic rebound, which is totally on them, but it did save over $100 million going this route.

[Removed unnecessarily snarky comment]

SLC - 1230 feet
DEN A-B - 1800 feet <---APM
DTW - 1050 feet
ORD T1 - 840 feet
LAX TBIT Midfield - 1300 feet

The distance from Hertz in the southeast corner of the garage to B15 is a minimum of 4500'. With any queuing back and forth and lice navigation at speed it will get close to 5000'.

I was in TSA for less than 5 minutes with paid F, I stopped for a last bio and handwash, and bought a water. Hertz to B15 walking as fast as possible on the moving walkways with the longest kettle-dodging obstacle course in history was 27 minutes.

It's not the distance, it's the time. SLC has made the decision to achieve their cost savings at the expense of any visitors that choose to use a carrier other than DL, to the tune of a million hours a year.

https://i.ibb.co/wyYcnNn/slc-base1.png

[Removed snarky comment] There is a reason to the current madness. As said above, the current tunnel is a temporary tunnel until the main tunnel is finished. When the main tunnel is finished there will be no need for APM as there will be a train. I can understand that logic.

Now if you want to discuss a bad design decision, try being in Denver when the train derails. There is absolutely no way to get between the concourses.

[Removed quote of and response to now-deleted comment]

Yes, SLC is an evil scheme by DL to make you walk an extra 5 minutes.

Current - belonging to the present time; happening or being used or done now

Example: The OP is currently posting vociferously because they currently have a problem with how the current connector tunnel is being used.

Where did you read that there will not be a train or moving walkway (APM)?? While the train is not mentioned in the factsheet there will be 4 moving walkways (they will all be designed so that only customers with DL boarding pass can use them).

https://slcairport.com/thenewslc/the...lc-fact-sheet/

• West Tunnel connecting concourses-3 elevators, 3 escalators, 3 moving walkways

• Connector to Gateway: 4 elevators, 2 escalators, 4 moving walkways

To quote yourself: I do not think it means what you think it means.

When I flew into DEN on DL I could only take the train. When train broke down. I could not get to Denver. That is pretty big penalty. Not building a people tunnel was a deliberate design decision. May not have been deliberate to penalize customers not flying UA but penalized they got.

Enjoy the day I am off for a walk about.

When DEN 2.0 was built, the A concourse was going to house the Denver hub for CO. It is the only concourse reachable by foot. CO decided to de-hub DEN due to high costs compared to Stapleton.

UA in concourse B always required use of the train.

DL operates out of B now, and that will continue even after the build is complete so what is the point of this thread? Don't visit SLC because it will take 5 more minutes to exit the terminal than it did in the past? The new terminal is so much more efficient from an aircraft movement perspective that it will cut gate holds immensely so it's probably a wash, except for your poor legs.

Absolutely. At PHL the walking distance from the farthest gate in terminal A to the farthest F gate is about 1.25 miles (just over 2km). Granted there are shuttle buses from A to F.

However, if you have a late night arrival into the high numbered A gates the exit from terminal A is frequently closed and they deliver bags at the B/C carousels. This means a walk to the B terminal exit and over the "bridge" to baggage claim. That's about 3600 feet. I've walked it many times, along with many even longer walks at other airports.

So it's yet another public structure built without regard for those with mobility issues.

No: I suspect the OP flew on Concorde JFK-LHR (“speedbird2”)
on 28th August 2003 (“030828”)
and sat in seat 7A for their journey…

and presumably are proud of having done so which would explain why they chose this specific screen-name

Use a wheelchair.

And at altitude....

Not when completed: https://slcairport.com/thenewslc

Delta's own T4 at JFK is more than 1km from TSA alone to the farthest gates.
Yes, the SLC walk is annoying but it isn't some sort of crazy deviation from the norm in modern airports.

LOL, hey, I went through SLC this summer on DL flights (LAS-SLC-SEA), and got to experience the “delights” of walking through that tunnel on a short connection.

So it’s not just non-DL pax. DL flights do show up in other concourses.

Also, try an LAX international flight connection where you arrive at TBIT and the outbound is T6 sometime.

They always flew Delta. ;)

You wrote the following:

If you weren't being purposely dramatic when you proposed murdering people, I'm genuinely concerned.

They flew Seagull Air until Morris Air replaced them. :D

Apparently, great isn't what they were going for..

I'll see myself out.

I absolutely love the new SLC and the Delta Sky Club is spectacular. It looks like they're making great progress on the new tunnel and the east side of Concourse A.

If my French Bulldog can make it from the B gates to National Car Rental reasonably, then I think most passengers should be able to without dramatic complaint.

I do wonder if they'll put in a train before Concourse C becomes a reality... But I don't think it's necessary when you see DTW and ORD not using a train for the parallel concourses.

So, you count the 'APM' in DTW and ORD that don't actually connect the remote pier at each?

ATL and DEN are very different in that there are remote piers, emphasis on the plurality. As demonstrated in DTW and ORD, a single remote pier doesn't really necessitate a train. SLC opted for a temporary solution that lacks moving sidewalks while they build a permanent solution with moving sidewalks, which is no different than inconvenient temporary solutions dealt with during many airport construction projects.

The permanent tunnel with moving sidewalks will shorten the time penalty, in some cases significantly (gates closest to the permanent tunnel), for those in the remote concourse.

Maybe 10% of FT threads go something like this:

OP: I dealt with an inconvenience and this is the worst thing that's ever happened in the history of aviation
Replies: It seems like it was a nuisance but it doesn't sound quite that bad! Here are some examples of similar things that don't inspire these sorts of posts all the time!
OP: No, actually, I'm right and you are all wrong! Here's some evidence that either ignores the broader point people are making or misinterprets logic!
Replies: OK, well, suit yourself!
Other replies: LOL this person is mad!

I love them every time.

I am confused by this post. How does one differentiate "connection flights" from O&D flights?

I think he means Delta Connection Carriers (AKA Skywest) mostly use the B gates and there isn't as much mainline activity in B like there is in A.

However the low number B gates do see a lot of mainline and there is even a Delta wide-body gate in B, I flew on a 767-400 out of one of the B gates not long ago.

Me too!

Is there literally any connection to AA in here?

Drama queen much?

I was there a few weeks ago. The new terminal is gorgeous. And yes it's a hike to/from the B gates. It's not gonna kill you to hoof it.

:rolleyes: