FLUG REVUE January 2003: Phoenix airport plans expansion

PHOENIX AIRPORT AIMS FOR GROWTH

By Renate Strecker

The name "Sky Harbor” implies a harbor growing upwards into the sky. This is in fact an extremely apt description, for scarcely any other international airport has achieved as much growth as this airport in the hot desert of the US state of Arizona. It is Southwest Airlines' biggest hub, America West Airlines' home base, it ranks fifth in the world on number of flight movements, sixth on speed of expansion of an airport, eleventh on passenger numbers and 22nd on the volume of cargo handled. But all this is not enough: Sky Harbor now wants to improve mobility around the airport with an automatic, remotely-controlled, state-of-the-art people-mover system. The grandiose system will cost some $35 million and from 2008 it will provide a direct underground link between a new seven-storey mega-car park for over 18,000 cars in the east and the three terminals. It will flow into a new complex, which also has yet to be built and will provide a home for 17 car hire companies. Already today Sky Harbor is one of the biggest car hire locations in the world, offering 40,000 vehicles.

With the expansion of Terminal 4, Sky Harbor's capacity will be raised in the next 15 years to 110 gates and 60 million passengers. Then there is another item at the top of Sky Harbor's wish list: internationality. David Krietor, Airport Director, has been vigorously working on this for some considerable time. "Winning Lufthansa as one of our international customers (with six A340 connections from Frankfurt per week) along with British Airways has cost the city of Phoenix a small fortune. But we want this airport to have international service. We've made huge efforts to win non-US airlines as customers. We want our airport to be world-class. After Lufthansa and British Airways, we are currently in discussions with Air France.” With a touch of frankness he adds, "Right now, at a time when Americans are having second thoughts about travelling, every international passenger is most welcome.” And the city, which not only owns Sky Harbor but also the regional airports Goodyear and Deer Valley, is backing this strategy by providing the necessary financial resources. It took a million dollars to entice Lufthansa into commencing scheduled services to PHX in 2001 – apparently, quite a normal procedure for winning customers in the industry. Since then, the German carrier has transported a goodly number of business travellers "to the desert” as well as tourists, achieving a respectable utilisation. British Airways was quite simply wooed away from the southern Californian rival San Diego, and now the British carrier serves Phoenix with a daily non-stop Boeing 777 flight from London.

An ultra-modern showcase city, designed for growth thanks to high-tech industry, and situated in the midst of inhospitable desert and precipitous mountains, Phoenix opens up to the observer as he approaches Sky Harbor Airport. Every 65 seconds an aircraft lands or takes off. Favourable winds ensure that the planes always have a head wind on the runways, which have been laid out in an east-west direction. In the morning the wind comes mainly from the east, in the afternoons from the west. Sky Harbor currently has three runways. The longest, in the north, is 3,353m long, to the south of it is a second, 3139m runway, while the most southerly, only completed two years ago, measures 2,377m. At present this is quite enough capacity, especially as the runways are sufficiently far apart to permit simultaneous approaches and departures, but Arizona's hot weather, with temperatures not infrequently above 40ºC in the summer months, sometimes poses a challenge to flying operations. The runways may still be long enough for the heavily laden jets to take off under high density altitude, but while a plane is parked at the gate the cockpit has to be covered over to protect it from the unrelenting heat. And the scorching sun can also melt the runway asphalt. Extensive construction work is therefore currently under way to refurbish all the runways with a more hard-wearing and heat-resistant layer of concrete. This work should be finished at the end of 2003 and, thanks to well-thought out logistics, flying operations will only be affected for about 50 days in January-February 2003.

On the other hand, the building work planned to the west of Terminal 4 will have less of an impact. 70% of all flights, including the international ones, are already handled there. At a cost about $50 million, concourse S-2 will expand the main terminal of Sky Harbor by a complex gate area so as to handle the expected passenger capacity.

It takes only 20 minutes to travel from the airport to the city or to one of the "suburbs” such as Scottsdale, Glendale, Gilmore, Mesa, Chandler or Tempe, virtually all of which, however, have actually spread out over the years to become just another part of a city that is growing three times as fast as other American metropolises. Today the Phoenix area already numbers 3.1 million inhabitants, the total population of Arizona is 5.1 million and it is expected that in 2015 the region around Phoenix will have a population of about 15 million, primarily younger, active people with well-paid jobs. This will be on top of the numerous multi-millionaires already concentrated in Scottsdale who have transformed the former artists' colony into a golfing Mecca. In this department too Arizona is right out in the lead, for nowhere else does one find so many excellent golf resorts in such close proximity.

This and the high standard of living already mentioned have been drawing well-heeled Americans to Arizona for some years. In the area around Phoenix it is almost always sunny. There are only 21 days of rain per year and the average annual temperature is a pleasant 23ºC. Arizona's foremost industries are semi-conductor production, aerospace, tourism and agriculture, thanks to which Phoenix is regarded by Americans as a desirable place to live, but the city is becoming more and more important internationally. According to Newsweek magazine, it is assumed that by 2025 the Phoenix area will have grown into the second biggest job machine in the USA. Moreover, the 48th state of the USA offers one of the top-ten world attractions in the Grand Canyon, which attracts millions of visitors every year and is less than four hours' drive from Sky Harbor Airport. Another interesting fact is that the Germans are the second largest contingent of foreign tourists in Arizona after the Canadians, accounting for 153,000 visitors per year out of a total of over 25 million.

America West is the main carrier, which, with its fleet of 141 jets, brings passengers from every part of the country to Phoenix. And in terms of the number of daily flights, Southwest Airlines, the fourth biggest US carrier with a fleet of 360 Boeing 737's, has an even bigger operation in Phoenix than in its own home airport of Dallas/Fort Worth.

"But since 11 September 2001 we have suffered from the general travel angst which has taken hold of our country,” says Ann Warner, Marketing Director. "A lot of people are simply afraid to fly, while the more stringent security regulations are also putting people off. It will definitely take some time for things to get back to normal so that the ground lost over the last year can be made up.”

Despite this, Sky Harbor is relying on originality, for that is the only way to make an airport stand out from the mass of other international airports. There is one original feature that is to be seen virtually everywhere in Sky Harbor, in the entrances, in the gates, in the immigration area and in the waiting zones: men and women clad in mauve jackets who belong to a voluntary airport programme and call themselves "Navigators”. Former airport employees, pilots, doctors, teachers, lawyers and also many young people have joined up. They are specially trained and help passengers and visitors in every walk of life and in a total of 27 languages, whether they are in search of a departure gate or looking for their bags or in need of baby changing facilities. At present 298 Navigators offer their services free of charge between 9 a.m. and 8 p.m. on weekdays and the response they have met from the "customers” and also from the airport itself is overwhelming. They are always up-to-date and sometimes even quite amusing: thus, for example, one Navigator makes a point of positioning himself by one of the arrival gates and waiting there for the aircrew to arrive in order to greet them, mischievously grinning, with the words "Welcome to Albuquerque”.

From page 70 of FLUG REVUE 1/2003

Last updated 5 December 2002

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