On Saturday the Raleigh-Durham Airport Authority opened the doors to Phase One of the new Terminal 2 to the public with an impressive open house. The celebration showed off the new 920,000 square foot, $570 million terminal which will offer expanded security areas and improved efficiency with check-in and baggage security and routing.

After being shuttled to the upper levels of the hourly parking garage, visitors were greeted in the parking plaza with a jazz band, the first of many dotted throughout the terminal during this seminal event. Upon entering the front door of the terminal, it is easy to be swept away by the arcing, curved ceiling. Made of glue-laminated layers, the sturdy wood beams carry a shape reminiscent of a wing’s airfoil shape. Dramatic windows have been incorporated to allow in much natural light. The ticketing area contains two island style ticketing stations as well as individual kiosks for express check in.

The layout for the new terminal is essentially the same as that for the old Terminal C; a big “H”. The isthmus, again, is the site of security, only this time, there is no grade change until one is beyond the security areas.

The single, long concourse is similar to that in Terminal C, however the building is about 25 feet wider. The extra room accommodates bidrectional travelators as well as numerous full-service restaurants. The ceiling is a continuation of the arched airfoil concept, and contains many strips of glass to allow in natural light. The three big restaurants that will be open in this phase are 42nd Street Oyster Bar, Carolina Ale House, and Gordon Beirsch.

The concourse features some welcome improvements. The bathrooms are large and well-lit. The seating areas at the gates have some end tables with hidden power outlets. While AC outlets are offered, other form factors such as USB are offered. Finally, the large displays throughout the concourse are on par with the flatscreen displays that are appearing in the nation’s best airports.

As stated before, the isthmus is on the ticketing level, so arriving passengers must ride up a short escalator, then down a long escalator to access the baggage claim areas. The baggage claim area is unremarkable. The best kept secret in this complex, however, is the aluminum tree sculpture at the baggage claim entrance on the lower level. The tree’s base is outside, though some of its branches seemingly “pass through” the building’s two-story windows.

The terminal will no doubt offer an improved ticketing, security, and dining experience. The use of large windows will allow the building to utilize natural light for most of the time that passengers are using the building. Overall, the architectural design is stunning, and will make an excellent impression on those arriving to our area for the first time.

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However, upon leaving the building, I have to wonder if this is the best way we could have spent just over half a billion dollars. Will the added natural light’s savings be offset by the additional costs to heat and condition the vast spaces inside the terminal? Will the movement of passengers up and down escalators eventually be seen as a backward way to move people? The facility only offers 4 more gates than Terminal C offered. Will this offer adequate revenues to help pay for this very expensive building? Will people actually use these full-service restaurants on the concourse? I can see this working in a hub setting, but in a point-to-point airport, the only customers they will get is those arriving early for their flight.

The new terminal is much like getting new shoes to wear with suits when your old shoes weren’t that bad…and your casual shoes are embarrassingly awful. The explanation I was given for replacing Terminal C first, instead of Terminal A, is that the airport could not move all of Terminal A’s functions into Terminal C while Terminal A is being replaced. With Terminal 2, they supposedly will be able to move the Terminal A airlines to 2 while replacing A. How will they accomplish this with just four more gates in Terminal 2?

Unfortunately Terminal 2 is another giant missed opportunity in RDU’s history. Ever since 1987 we have operated two airports at RDU; one right across the street from the other. Whether it be parking decks, ticketing areas, baggage claims, runways, control towers, or concourses, there are at least two of everything at RDU. If we’re building a baggage claim facility, a ticketing area, and a security area, why not build such that both concourses can use it?

By building a central terminal and connecting it to just the concourses in the existing terminals, RDU could have set itself up for easy, efficient expansion and renovation in the future as well as incredible efficiency in the present. This design is called the landside/airside design and it has been so beloved in Tampa since 1971 that Orlando used it when it built its new airport in 1981. A central terminal almost the size of Orlando’s could easily fit on the NE side of RDU’s parking decks. People movers are so flexible, that future gates could be put virtually anywhere along the runways.

There are two main arguments I’ve heard against the landside/airside design for RDU. One is that Southwest Airlines likes their arrangement in the Terminal B section of Terminal A. They have full control of their gates, their security area, and their baggage claim. They have apparently been resistant to any changes. Second, the inter-runway space between RDU’s two primary runways is much smaller than most airports. The original design was to build twin runways beside Terminal C, so the 5L/23R runway was placed as close as possible to Terminal C to allow for its eventual twin.

That said, most airside/landside arrangements have central terminals, but there is no law stating that the central terminal cannot be offset, as depicted above. (The green lines represent roadways and the orange lines represent people movers. Terminals 2 and C can be seen in the top of the picture, while Terminal A is at the bottom.). In fact, if the road entering the airport could be aligned to run along the edge of the parking decks, it would be entirely possible to rebuild Terminal A as a two-sided concourse.

While Terminal 2 is will be impressing a lot of people in the next few years, it depressing to think of what could have been.