Take a walk through the Burbank airport terminal and you're taking a walk back in time.
Built before the Jet Age, the main terminal started out servicing biplanes. And when aviation didn't cover business costs, legend has it, owner United Airports Ltd. sold hay on the side. Today, the hay and biplanes are long gone. But 69 years after it opened on Memorial Day 1930, Burbank airport still harks back to another era in aviation.
But perhaps not for long, as adversaries in the long-running battle over a new terminal appear close to reaching agreement over a 16-gate replacement terminal (with possible expansion to 19 gates) that would be twice the size of the current facility.
Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority officials say that a new complex is long overdue. The main terminal building is just 225 feet from the runway--a convenience in 1930, but a distance considered dangerously close in 1999. And there are no enclosed jet ways running from the terminal to the boarding hatch. Passengers walk out onto the pavement and climb stairs to board, even in the rain.
Inside, officials say, the waiting areas and airline operations facilities are cramped and overcrowded. To help cope with demand, the East Concourse was added in 1987. But it was built as a no-frills interim facility, without the kinds of amenities air travelers have come to expect at airports.
"The biggest pain is that it's too crowded," said Fritz Anderson, 35, a Pacific Bell employee. "There's not enough seats at the gates. The food is terrible. I don't care what it looks like, but there's not much to look at."
The new terminal is far from a done deal. Public hearings and approvals are still ahead, and concerns remain that the new terminal will lead to a dramatic increase in flights and noise. Even so, Burbank officials who have been fighting the project say that they appear to be closer to a resolution now than at any time in the past four years.
But what exactly will the new complex be like? And how will it change the passenger experience?
Airport and airline officials were taken off-guard by those questions--having had an almost single-minded focus on the fight to build the new terminal.
"We've been waging a war," said Carl Raggio, who represents Glendale on the tri-city Airport Authority. "And we've forgotten all about the things that the people who go to the airport want."
