List of airports and total gate numbers!

[LMich]

Yes, with bridges.

BTW, DTW (Detroit Metro) is fairly expansive at 11 square miles. It's passenger numbers have been going up and down between 32 and 36 million since 2000. The place never feels congested.

I remember the place when they were using the Smith (32 gates) and Davey (36 gates) terminals as their main terminals before the construction of the massive Midfield (McNamara) Terminal and the North Terminal, and the Smith was so ugly and cramped. It was built in 1957...and looked and felt like it. The Davey was kind of impressive for its time (1966), but you're still talking 68 main gates to handle all that traffic. The small international terminal, Berry, was pretty cool and the newest of the old terminals (1974). 2002 completely changed the face of the airport, though, as Smith and Davey are gone, and Berry is used for offices, now.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by fflint

^Same experience here with Midway--came in right in over the houses, rigorous braking on the runway, and then straight to the Orange Line for the win. I'd fly into Midway over O'Hare anyday.

midway is definitely the better option if transit access into downtown is a concern. both o'hare and midway are served by el lines, but midway is half the distance from downtown compared to o'hare (~8 miles vs. ~ 16 miles), making the train ride into the city considerably shorter.

[brickell]

Except when your plane is delayed 4 freaking hours in Atlanta and the EL closes, but nobody bothered to mention it. So I walk all the way back to the airport and wait in a taxi line for 45 minutes and end up at the hotel at 3am. But anyway...

The line to O'hare was excruciatingly slow on the flight back from what I remember. Thumbs up to both being connected though.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by brickell

Except when your plane is delayed 4 freaking hours in Atlanta and the EL closes, but nobody bothered to mention it.

yikes, they really should have a way to signal to out of towners that the orange line shuts down from 1:00am - 4:00am every night. the 1:00am closing is too early for an airport train line. ideally it should be 24 hour like the blue line serving o'hare, but even stretching service to 2:00am would help a lot of people on delayed flights.

Originally Posted by brickell

The line to O'hare was excruciatingly slow on the flight back from what I remember.

yeah, the blue line all the way out to o'hare is a slog. slow zone repairs have made it a little more bearable in recent years, but these days i still prefer to fork over the cash for a cab if i have to get all the way out to o'hare as long as it ain't rush hour (when the kennedy turns into an insufferable parking lot). if i have an 8:00am flight, i can leave my condo at 6:45am and be at o'hare by 7:00am via a taxi, with an hour for check-in/security. relying on the blue line would require taking the green line to a blue line transfer and then riding the blue line all the way out there. to make that same 8:00am flight with an hour for check-in/security, i'd need to leave my condo by 5:45am to be safe. i'll pay an extra 25 bones for the additional sleep.

[mthd]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

...yeah, the blue line all the way out to o'hare is a slog. slow zone repairs have made it a little more bearable in recent years...

when it's running on schedule with no work on the line or problems, it's really not bad. less than 40 minutes. i used to use it all the time, but after a few 1:30 trips for no clear reason, i gave up. is it back to "normal" ?

[sbarn]

Newark: 129
JFK: 125
La Guardia: 72

[Cleveland Brown]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

yeah, the blue line all the way out to o'hare is a slog.

My flight from Cleveland was shorter than taking the blue line into the loop!

[Cleveland Brown]

Originally Posted by LMich

Yes, with bridges.

BTW, DTW (Detroit Metro) is fairly expansive at 11 square miles. It's passenger numbers have been going up and down between 32 and 36 million since 2000. The place never feels congested.

I remember the place when they were using the Smith (32 gates) and Davey (36 gates) terminals as their main terminals before the construction of the massive Midfield (McNamara) Terminal and the North Terminal, and the Smith was so ugly and cramped. It was built in 1957...and looked and felt like it. The Davey was kind of impressive for its time (1966), but you're still talking 68 main gates to handle all that traffic. The small international terminal, Berry, was pretty cool and the newest of the old terminals (1974). 2002 completely changed the face of the airport, though, as Smith and Davey are gone, and Berry is used for offices, now.

Detroit literally went from being one of the worst airports in the US to one of the best. I remember trips to the airport in the late 1980s and even as a child I thought the place was really dated. Ironically, Detroit's main airport used to be further out at Willow Run (damn near Ann Arbor for those who don't know) yet it moved closer to the city in the 1950s and still had enough space to build four parallel runways and two cross runways over the years - with the option to build a fifth parallel runway still. Still the lack of rail access to downtown is a PITA.

With the exception of the McNamera Terminal, I enjoy that Airport Authority has resisted adding a politician's name - it's refreshing that it's just the "North Terminal" or just "Detroit Metropolitan Airport."

[Rail Claimore]

Originally Posted by L41A

I always heard the land size of ATL airport was not that large when compared to some other airports. But like I do often before I post on this site, I checked two sources for information - one was ATL airport website that stated that the land size of ATL was 4700 acres (7.3 sq mi). Another source of FAA registered airports stated the same thing. This same source also stated that LAX land size is 3500 acres (5.5 sq. mi.) as you stated.

This same source also stated the land size of DEN (Denver) is 33,457 acres (52.3 sq. mi). From what I could find DFW airport land size is 28.2 sq. mi.

ATL was marginally larger in area than LAX before Runway 10/28 was built (that project probably increased the total area of the airport by about 1/3) and had a similar layout with 4 parallel runways: 2 north and 2 south of the terminal complex. The only difference is that ATL has always had taxiways between its sets of runways, and its terminal/concourse layout was designed for efficiency from the get-go. DEN and other major airports built since have copied it.

Originally Posted by Cleveland Brown

Detroit literally went from being one of the worst airports in the US to one of the best. I remember trips to the airport in the late 1980s and even as a child I thought the place was really dated. Ironically, Detroit's main airport used to be further out at Willow Run (damn near Ann Arbor for those who don't know) yet it moved closer to the city in the 1950s and still had enough space to build four parallel runways and two cross runways over the years - with the option to build a fifth parallel runway still. Still the lack of rail access to downtown is a PITA.

With the exception of the McNamera Terminal, I enjoy that Airport Authority has resisted adding a politician's name - it's refreshing that it's just the "North Terminal" or just "Detroit Metropolitan Airport."

My only time flying through DTW was in 2005 on a trip to Japan. It's by far the best airport in the US as far as modernization and aesthetics go. The McNamera Terminal looks straight out of Asia.

[LMich]

Originally Posted by Cleveland Brown

With the exception of the McNamera Terminal, I enjoy that Airport Authority has resisted adding a politician's name - it's refreshing that it's just the "North Terminal" or just "Detroit Metropolitan Airport."

I do like North Terminal, but from what I understand, the name is a mistake. It was just meant to be the placeholder, and they were going to sell off the rights to the name, but either no one took them up on it, or they pulled the offer due to some technical reason. I still refer to the McNamara as the Midfield, though, if I ever have to make the distinction.

I can be a bit of a homer, but I've objectively found the Metro to be one of the most easily navigable and aesthetically pleasing international airports in the country. I think it's going to age pretty well, too, since the design isn't so cluttered. It really doesn't try to hard. Clean lines, and solid and simple colors is the way to go. But, boy did Metro used to be a total dump of an airport even as recently as 2000.

BTW, where would the fifth runway go if they ever built it?

[Cleveland Brown]

Originally Posted by LMich

I do like North Terminal, but from what I understand, the name is a mistake. It was just meant to be the placeholder, and they were going to sell off the rights to the name, but either no one took them up on it, or they pulled the offer due to some technical reason. I still refer to the McNamara as the Midfield, though, if I ever have to make the distinction.

I can be a bit of a homer, but I've objectively found the Metro to be one of the most easily navigable and aesthetically pleasing international airports in the country. I think it's going to age pretty well, too, since the design isn't so cluttered. It really doesn't try to hard. Clean lines, and solid and simple colors is the way to go. But, boy did Metro used to be a total dump of an airport even as recently as 2000.

BTW, where would the fifth runway go if they ever built it?

The fifth parallel runway (DTW would have seven total runways) would cross both Eureka and Middlebelt roads. Thankfully, that area isn't really built up, so land acquisition costs should be much lower than at other, more congested, airports. You can see a map of the airport's master plan in the link below showing the proposed fifth runway, terminal expansions, and a proposed people mover.

http://www.metroairport.com/programs...pment_Plan.pdf

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by Cleveland Brown

My flight from Cleveland was shorter than taking the blue line into the loop!

hah! yeah, about the same experience from st. louis, too. it's about 1 hour on the head flying into midway, anyway. i cant remember the last time i used ohare.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by LMich

I can be a bit of a homer, but I've objectively found the Metro to be one of the most easily navigable and aesthetically pleasing international airports in the country. I think it's going to age pretty well, too, since the design isn't so cluttered.

As much as I fly in and out of Detroit I've still never been into the North Terminal. But the McNamera Terminal design is serving as the template for the Delta Terminal upgrade at JFK.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Rail Claimore

This somewhat confirms a suspicion of mine: of all the major hubs I've flown through, ATL and LAX are the only ones where practically every inch of the airport is busy and every gate has a plane parked at it. These two airports definitely make maximum use of both their terminal and airfield spaces. Even sections of DFW and ORD can be eerily quiet in the middle of the day.

I agree. I've flown out of DFW multiple times on a weekday afternoon and the place is a ghost town.

JFK is probably the most packed international airport in America. It's not uncommon to have to sit on a plane for 30 minutes after landing because there are no gates available.

[fflint]

Las Vegas McCarran has 103 gates by my count, but Wikipedia has some confusing language to the effect there may be more than that.

Sacramento International Airport has 32 gates.

Reno-Tahoe International Airport has 23 gates.

Manchester-Boston Regional Airport has exactly 15 gates.

[Lakelander]

Originally Posted by brickell

I'm measuring MIA at 4.3 sq miles
FLL is right at around 2
PBI somewhere around 2.2

MCO on the other hand is north of 9+ sq miles
I take it no one has counted the gates there either... looks like 96

Here's the rest of Florida's airports with 10 gates or more:

96 - Orlando International (MCO)
62 - Tampa International (TPA)
28 - Southwest Florida International (RSW) (Fort Myers)
20 - Jacksonville International (JAX)
14 - Sarasota-Bradenton (SRQ)
13 - St. Petersburg-Clearwater International (PIE)
12 - Pensacola International (PNS)
12 - Orlando Sanford International (SFB)

[LMich]

Originally Posted by Cleveland Brown

The fifth parallel runway (DTW would have seven total runways) would cross both Eureka and Middlebelt roads. Thankfully, that area isn't really built up, so land acquisition costs should be much lower than at other, more congested, airports. You can see a map of the airport's master plan in the link below showing the proposed fifth runway, terminal expansions, and a proposed people mover.

http://www.metroairport.com/programs...pment_Plan.pdf

Thanks for the PDF. I'd actually never seen the masterplan. So, it looks like the airport has the capacity to add anther 40 gates, which would bring it to 187 gates, total. Oh, and I see what you mean by the runway, now. It'd be in the very southeast corner of the airport.

[denizen467]

Originally Posted by LMich

Yes, with bridges.

I'm not sure people aren't being fast and loose with this criterion. Many airports have commuter airline (small aircraft) gates, or have bus gates merely for boarding a tarmac bus that drives to the remote site of the aircraft where an airstair awaits, that are just a stairway down to the tarmac -- yet multiple gate numbers are created so as to organize the holdrooms and agent podiums.

I think it can be hard to just look at Wikipedia and know which gates have jetbridges. You may have to get on your hands and knees and pore over terminal layout maps. So, many of the counts in this thread might be slightly inflated.

Using the jetbridge as a litmus test of whether a gate is "legitimate" isn't a bad idea -- protection from weather and ease of boarding, especially with unweildy bags, wheelchairs, etc. seems like a good baseline requirement.

One unanswered question I have is: Which major airports still use "bus gates" ?

[denizen467]

Originally Posted by jd3189

Atlanta is a giant. Is there a reason for it having the world's busiest airport?

Can I hypothesize that any airport serving as a hub to the Caribbean gets an artificial boost in number of gates, because if they were connected by land then all those island destinations would use just a couple airports rather than dozens. As it is, practically every non-trivial isle gets its own schedule of (smaller) flights serving it, requiring more (smaller) gates at ATL, MIA, etc.

Imagine, for example, if all vacationers/pensioners from the whole US going to anywhere in central Florida had to use 20 different airports rather than just Orlando and Tampa. Or if nobody going to Napa, Sonoma, San Francisco, Oakland, Palo Alto, San Jose, Santa Cruz, etc., etc., etc. could choose any airport other than one immediately next to their destination, rather than all taking large aircraft to just one or two major airports (SFO and, say, San Jose) as they do. Very simplified examples.

[brickell]

That seems unlikely. There's plenty of puddle jumpers to all sorts of small airports through the US.

Tallahassee, Knoxville, Syracuse...