Plan to Expand LAX Terminal Takes Wing

Just because you have a plane ticket for a seat to a foreign country, don’t assume the deal includes a seat in the terminal to wait for your flight.

Opened in 1984 when only 6.8 million passengers passed through its halls per year, the Tom Bradley International Terminal at the L.A. airport now accommodates about 10 million passengers annually.

Just walk into the departure hall and the problem is evident. Four makeshift food carts clog the front of the terminal near the ticketing area while the sound of hammers reverberates as new concession stands are being built on the mezzanine.

Passengers jostle for limited seating.

“There are too many people,” said 27-year-old Peter Pfister of Switzerland, scrunched atop a wooden stool placed between the food carts and a major walkway. “You cannot sit down. You don’t have enough seats.”

Los Angeles International Airport officials plan to remedy the crowding at the terminal by investing $20 million to $30 million over the next three to four years to double first-class lounge space and the size of the bus departure lounge, expand the international passenger in-transit area and add two baggage carousels.

“During peak periods, it gets very congested in a number of areas,” said Jack Graham, director of airport planning.

Another factor that will ease crowding is United Airlines’ move to Terminals 6 and 7. Frustrated with conditions at the international terminal, United transferred its international operation to an area where it will have nine gates and a customs and immigration area exclusively for its passengers. About 18% of all arriving international passengers at LAX use United.

The cramped conditions at the Bradley terminal have been evident for some time. Air New Zealand moved its international facilities to Terminal 2 last year after experiencing frustration over the crowding.

But recently, international airlines began to complain more vociferously about the Bradley terminal and the lack of space.

“I’d be lying to you that the passengers aren’t being inconvenienced,” said Tony Griffin, customer service manager for British Airways. “We have a situation here though that construction really needs to take place soon on a new international terminal, much sooner than anyone thought.”

Another reason to expand is that the size of airplanes will be growing.

Right now, the biggest passenger planes are the 747-400s, which carry 400 people. In three or four years, 747-600s will carry 600 passengers into and out of the airport. They will be so large--30 feet longer and 30 feet wider than the 747-400s--that they won’t be able to pull up to the terminal. Instead, passengers will have to be bused to the planes parked in remote areas.

The bus departure lounge has 16 gates. That lounge will probably double in size, said Robert McCoy, whose company, McCoy Associates, got a $49,000 contract to study how an expansion would be done. It is the same architectural firm that designed the international terminal.

McCoy said that when the Bradley facility was built in time for the 1984 Summer Olympics, only 12 international airlines were using it. Now there are 50.

The planned expansion is just a small project compared to the multibillion-dollar master plan being created for the airport, the fifth busiest air facility in the world with 54 million passengers using it last year. In the next 20 years, that number is expected to increase to 97 million.