For air travelers, a long and winding road
The expanded airport has sign and distance drawbacks.
By Tom Belden
Inquirer Staff Writer
JOHN COSTELLO / Inquirer
Frequent travelers Don and Sher Kasum (far left) make the trek from Terminal F to Terminal E, one of the airport’s trouble spots.
Most air travelers these days are prepared to pull off their shoes before going through airport security. But in Philadelphia, a pair of sturdy hiking boots may be more appropriate.
Though Philadelphia International Airport has been improved dramatically in many ways over the last two years, an expansion has created a set of terminals that sprawl for more than a mile and require walking longer distances than ever before.
Travelers say some of the long walks are made more annoying by what has been inadequate or confusing signage in the new international terminal and in Terminal F. Some of the problems are typical for new public facilities, where good signs are not always up by opening day.
But some of the annoyances have persisted for months, especially at Terminal F, where a new, more direct route to get from the baggage-claim area to ground transportation opened in May, but without a sign at a key location telling travelers it was there. Thus many travelers have walked more than twice as far as they have had to.
With the summer vacation season in full swing, the problems could give fits to an even larger-than-average number of airport users.
On any given day, such people can be found in various states of confusion.
Perhaps Claire Grasier, for example, will be able to navigate the twists and turns at the airport after she has earned her doctorate. But recently, the former US Airways employee, now a graduate student at Immaculata University, was standing in a corridor of the new international terminal, A-West, looking at a directional sign, baffled about where to go to return a piece of luggage to British Airways that a friend had taken away by mistake.
"I worked at the airport for 19 years and I can''t find my way around," Grasier said with a laugh. "It''s really not clear... and I''m working on a doctorate."
On a recent Sunday, Scott and Diane Selkowitz of Havertown experienced what can happen if travelers are not able to follow a normal route out of Terminal A-West.
After arriving from London on British Airways and clearing Customs in A-West, they found themselves among a confused gaggle of visitors from abroad trying to find the rest of the airport. Because two escalators were not working, travelers were taking what Scott Selkowitz said was a single working elevator to a ground-floor corridor, where a small cardboard sign provided the only clue about which way to turn.
"Foreign visitors were saying, ''I have a US Airways flight. Where do I go?'' " he said. "There''s no one to ask. Those of us from Philadelphia were giving directions, and it was embarrassing."
Airport users also can be stumped by temporary signs directing people from the parking garages to the airline counters and baggage-claim areas of A-West, which opened in May. The signs, which will be in place at least two more months, have more than 30 lines of information on them, requiring a careful reading to avoid a wrong turn.
Some of the longest walks are for US Airways passengers departing on international flights, and for arriving international travelers connecting to a domestic flight on any airline. Though the A-West departure gates opened more than two months ago, the terminal''s ticket counters and its ground-transportation pickup zones are not scheduled to be ready until late next month.
That means departing US Airways passengers still check in at the Terminal B-C ticket counter and then could have a long walk to reach their gate.
"It''s a never-ending challenge," city Aviation Director Charles J. Isdell said. "We''ve expanded the terminal area by about a third over the last few years."
Isdell said his staff had tried to determine whether the airport required longer walks than other facilities its size, but had not found information with which to make a valid comparison.
Isdell said he sent staffers out recently to determine how long it took to walk from gates on the A-West concourse, where all international flights arrive, to the first rest rooms, just before passengers enter Immigration.
"The longest is a 21/2-minute walk," he said. "That doesn''t sound extreme to me, but if someone''s been on a plane for eight hours... they might feel grumpy about that."
Since the mid-1990s, the airport has installed 22 moving sidewalks that help over long, straight corridors. But the basic design of the airport, which has grown over half a century from a single blocky building where Terminals B and C are now, means long walks are unavoidable.
"There is clearly a trade-off," Isdell said. "This [A-West] is a gigantic building, to be able to accommodate wide-bodied aircraft. The trade-off is on a human scale."
Until mid-May, getting from the Terminal F baggage-claim area to a parking garage, shuttle bus, taxi or limousine was another annoyance at an airport where construction projects have annoyed travelers for a decade.
"It''s terrible," said an exhausted business traveler, Anh Lam, an engineer from Allentown, who was hauling three pieces of luggage from Terminal F toward Terminal E recently. "It would be a good workout if I weren''t so tired."
Lam and others were dismayed to learn they were taking the long way around. Their route required going up one floor and walking more than 1,100 feet, from the Terminal F baggage-claim area over one long bridge to Terminal E, and then over another bridge to the ground-transportation zones on the arrivals roadway system between Terminals D and E.
The travelers could have gotten close to the same point by walking about 500 feet, using a bridge that opened in May, directly linking Terminal F to the airport''s parking garages and Terminal E arrivals roadway and ground transportation.
But it will be the end of this month - and require more study by airport consultants - before signs are scheduled to go up directing travelers to the new bridge, airport officials said. That means for now, most people do not know they have any choice but to do what they have been forced to do since Terminal F opened in June 2001.
"It''s a bit of a hassle," said Jim Yosh, a business traveler from Richmond, Va., who comes to the region frequently and was hustling over the bridge toward Terminal E, carrying a suitcase, a golf bag, and a briefcase. "I''ve had to lug my bags from here to the other terminal before. It''s a headache."
Airport officials said consultants were used to recommend where to put all signs, and how big they should be, to make sure they have a uniform look and are not done haphazardly. Officials said they often do not put up directional signs on the first day a facility opens, but wait to see which way traffic seems to flow naturally. In addition, the officials said they wanted to finish a separate construction project on the Terminal D and E arrivals roadway before putting up permanent signs.
Terminal F is the only one at the airport where the baggage-claim area is in the same building with ticket counters. It was designed that way because of a lack of space to build a separate baggage-claim building next to Terminal E, and because most passengers using the building were not expected to be ending their trip and retrieving bags there.
But US Airways Express flights increasingly are replacing US Airways mainline jet service, meaning that more travelers between cities such as Philadelphia and Cleveland, Cincinnati, Richmond, Va., and St. Louis are using Terminal F - and have to find their way to and from ground transportation.
Until last month, travelers faced another hassle once they reached Terminal E - whichever route they took. Construction on the airport''s main arrivals roadway past Terminals D and E forced all ground-transportation services to the back side of the Terminal D baggage-claim building. Since that work was finished, traffic headed to the D and E arrivals area has flowed much more smoothly.
"While it was not pretty, hopefully it has a happy ending," Isdell said.
