Houstonist Ponders Terminal B Expansion

More seating in the waiting areas

You need more seating for folks awaiting departures. See if you can follow us on the math. There's roughly ten gates in each pod, in the current Terminal B layout. Each one of those gates has one assigned flight, sometimes two assigned flights. So, we're setting the flight factor at 1.3 per gate. We should double that number based on the fact that Continental Express departures leave at a rate of one every 30 minutes, which means that there will be overlap between passengers on flights that leave back-to-back at each gate. So, 10 gates times 1.3 per gate times 2 per hour puts us at 26 flights departing from the same pod in an hour. We figure that 65% of the passengers on the flight (which is 90% of 50 possible, or 45, if it's a regional jet) - roughly 30 per plane - will congregate near the gate prior to departure. That's approximately 680 passengers in the gate area. Current capacity is closer to 400 according to our estimates. But, you'll need to figure in a few empty seats between folks. No one wants to sit like sardines for the hour plus preceding the flight when they're going to do the same on the crop duster. Oh, of course this assumes that all flights leave on time. Factor in the frequent weather delays at IAH and the point become more urgent.

Healthier food choices

Houstonist likes to eat. We like to eat everything. That's our problem, yeah. But, even the skinny people don't feel like eating chicken fried tofu. We'll bet you lunch that sales at a local "healthier" option like Ziggy's would out pace Wendy's year-round except for Spring Break. Hey! How about pitching the idea to Whole Paycheck Foods or Central Mark-up Market to have one of their prepared food counters or delis in the new Terminal B? Travelers may start scheduling stops on direct routes just to get some turkey enchiladas or sweet chili tofu.

Less frequent gate changes

Terminal B handles a lot of flights. We get it. Flight schedules are models of efficiency with low margins of error that decrease costs and maximize value for the customer. O.K., if you say so. And flight schedules get hosed due to delays imposed by Mother Nature, air traffic control and security. We get that, too. What we don't get is why it seems acceptable to change gates for a flight less than ten minutes before the flight's scheduled departure time. We know it's more of an operational gaff than a design-related item, but it could influence some design considerations.

Don't forget to ditch the archaic mainframe system used by gate agents. James Michener didn't use that many key strokes to write "Texas."