Concourses or Golf Courses?

Whenever flying is a part of my travel plans, I wear my most comfortable pair of walking shoes. Long gone are the days of the coat-and-tie-to-fly dress code, in favor of sneakers (and jeans). My reason for rubber-soled kicks used to be, “What if we’re in some kind of accident and I need to get off in a hurry?” Today I go with a wholly different reason. The long, long walk I can expect from curb to concourse to airplane cabin simply demands something easy on the feet.

Here’s a startling comparison.  If you play golf and skip the cart, you’re going to walk over four miles to finish your round.  By almost the same token, if you’re connecting through Dallas-Ft. Worth or Atlanta and choose to walk from Terminal B to Terminal E, you’re going to walk over two miles.  Add in the inevitable search for food, a stop or two at retail, and a visit to the restroom and you’re closer to three miles.  And none of that includes the distance from the curb to the ticket counter, from the counter through security, and from your gate down the jetway to your seat on the plane.

How do they do it in heels?

Now for the bad news.  Airports are only getting bigger, and not for the reasons you might think.  Sure, more people fly than ever before, which adds more planes, more gates, and even more airports.  But behind the scenes a couple of stronger forces are at work.  One, airlines are shifting to larger aircraft, which translates to more space between parked planes.  Two, airport parking revenue is down (thanks to Uber, Lyft, and more mass transit), which translates to the airport’s need to find revenue elsewhere.  Where?  Retail, bars, and restaurants.

Don’t get used to these…

From recent trips through airports, I’ve noticed the following.  In Denver International, remodeled Concourse B is already labeled “Gates 1-100”, even though there aren’t a hundred gates.  It’s a straight-line concourse and it’s only going to get longer.  In Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson, the concourses are so long and narrow (and so crowded), that last gate is farther than you can see without binoculars.  And in San Diego’s Lindbergh Field, when you’re processed into Terminal 2 from security, you can’t see a single gate, because you have to pass through a veritable shopping mall first.

In the ultimate insult to long walks to planes, some airports have left the moving walkways out of their concourse remodels.  Those walkways discourage you from passing directly in front of the food and retail the airport so desperately needs you to patronize.  And intentional or not, the airlines encourage these purchases by offering less food onboard.  You, weary traveler, are a captive audience to more than one performer.

I prefer this kind of walk

Let’s not forget the rental cars.  Avis’s slogan is “We try harder”.  Maybe it should be, “We try harder… to take more of your money“.  I just reviewed my receipt from a recent San Diego rental for a full-size standard Kia sedan.  Right there below the actual daily rate: “11.11% Concession Recovery Fee”; essentially the cost of doing business at the airport.  Add in Vehicle License Recoup fee, Customer Facility Charge (another airport fee), California Tourism Fee, and a final flourish of “tax”, and the rate increased by 32%.  All so I can walk further to get to my rental car?

An early chapter of my career was in airport planning.  We’re the people who figure out how to get the planes from the runways to the taxiways to the gates without hitting each other.  We also design the terminal buildings to include enough gates, concessions and restrooms (yeah, yeah, bring on the heat with that last item).  Concourse design used to be “spoke and hub”, meaning you walked down the spoke to a circular boarding hub of several gates.  It made the airplane taxiing a little trickier outside, but it significantly reduced a passenger’s walk to the gate.  Today, airports no longer favor the design (er, traveler) because it reduces the square footage for concessions.

For those of you who live and die by your 10,000 steps, take heart; airports are helping you accomplish your daily goal.  Phoenix Sky Harbor even disguised the long walk through the concourses by calling it a “Fitness Trail”.  Be sure to allow enough time to get in a (seriously overpriced) shopping trip at all those concessions.  But don’t forget, the airlines only allow one reasonably sized carry-on these days.  Any others will cost you a checked bag fee… because the airport isn’t making enough money already.

Some content sourced from the CNN Business article, “Why you have to walk so far to your gate at the airport”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

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Author: Dave

Five hundred posts would suggest I have something to say… This blog was born from a desire to elevate the English language, highlighting eloquent words from days gone by. The stories I share are snippets of life itself, and each comes with a bonus: a dusted-off word I hope you’ll go on to use more often. Read “Deutschland-ish Improvements” to learn about my backyard European wish list. Try “Slush Fun” for the throwback years of the 7-Eleven convenience store. Or drink in "Iced Coffee" to discover the plight of the rural French cafe. On the lighter side, read "Late Night Racquet Sports" for my adventures with our latest moth invasion. As Walt Whitman said, “That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.” Here then, my verse. Welcome to Life In A Word.

14 thoughts on “Concourses or Golf Courses?”

  1. We recently flew to Seattle and … yeah what a long walk. Here at our little RNO airport it’s a reasonable walk from the parking lot to the gate, but at Seattle, I felt like I should have trained for a marathon before getting off the plane. On our way back we decided to get dinner at the airport – junk food for the same price as fine dining in the city. We’re flying again in a month or so. Right now I’m looking for serious walking shoes and training to walk five miles a day … and walk fast, some of our layovers aren’t that long.

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    1. It seems like layovers can’t be too long these days, what with weather issues and pilot shortages. We were invited to a wedding next December and I was actually relieved to realize we could drive seven hours instead of flying.

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  2. I have not flown in 40 years – my last trip was for a Scandinavian and Russia tour in June 1983 – I am sure I’d be shocked to see how different things are now. Today at Detroit Metro Airport there were many frustrated passengers … we had four bouts of torrential rain in the early morning of Thursday August 24th and it flooded the area inside the airport and the streets leading to the airport. Drivers could not access the two main streets leading to the airport due to massive flooding, planes coming in could not land as the runaways were flooded from rain, so were running out of fuel and landing in Ohio or smaller airports (like Grand Rapids).

    It was a real debacle which was not cleared up until late today, but we are having severe weather again tonight, same bouts of torrential rain, hail, 70 mph winds and possibly two tornadoes. My boss is flying to Milwaukee tomorrow morning to attend a funeral Saturday. I suggested he just drive there.

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    1. I think you’re better off than most of us for not flying at all, Linda. I’m reminded of HP’s corporate philosophy: a triangle designed to focus proportionally on customers, shareholders, and employees. The airlines and airports have two of those three in order, but customers are clearly taking the hit. Add in recent weather woes and staffing issues and you have a truly unpredictable, unsatisfying experience.

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      1. The customer is the least likely to prevail these days – this is true. Today my boss had to fly to Milwaukee for a funeral tomorrow morning. He had booked the flight Wednesday before our volatile storms last night (we had six tornadoes and massive flooding in SE Michigan). This morning, three hours before his flight, while enroute to the airport, he got an e-mail “we cancelled your flight, but rebooked you” … the new flight was four hours later and he would miss a family get-together tonight, but with storm damage and flooding, that was a better bet than a six-hour drive. Sigh.

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      2. Your weather has been headline news this week and last so I’m not surprised to read about delays and cancellations. Hope things settle down up there!

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  4. I’ve never figured out how flight attendants can walk as far as they do in those heels either. I remember years ago being on a flight from Atlanta to Bermuda where the flight attendants ALL changed out of heels into flats, like it was their own conspiracy, rebels every one of them.

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    1. Like a “pregnancy suit”, maybe men should walk a mile in heels to better understand what women go through, Ally. It’s a wonder more females don’t have long-term issues with their feet.

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  5. Comfortable shoes are a MUST for air travelers today. I can vouch for your comments about Atlanta’s airport–heavily congested and much walking required. It’s good to remind ourselves while traipsing those concourse miles, “This is good for me! I’ve been (or I’m going to be) sitting quite still in a confined space. But right now I get to MOVE!”

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    1. To this good advice I would add, “drink more water”. I intentionally drink less water when I fly, to avoid having to bother that person in the aisle seat. But I should know better. Health first 🙂

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  6. I fly seldom enough that I am always surprised at how airports have changed. When the movable sidewalks go away, life quality decreases. And I have always tried to avoid renting cars at the airport just because of the excessive costs.

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    1. If I have a comfortable amount of time at the airport (big “if”) I don’t mind getting the steps, but admittedly those moving walkways have helped with a few tight connections.

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