Good morning from London Heathrow Airport, where I’m in the middle of a longer transit that I’ve had at Dallas Fort Worth.
Oh, and additional thanks to American Airlines messing with the equipment. What was booked for a 777-300 turned into an older 777-2000… and they desperately need to begin refurbishing those old 777-200s urgently.
Yet, transiting DFW on a domestic to international connection was actually rather easy.
But then Heathrow connections aren’t easy in their nature – with some 1960s terminals, and some god-awful planning. That and the mix of international traffic with the odd bit of domestic traffic makes it a challenge for a totally free-flowing system.
Dallas Fort Worth’s Skylink really does it well – with an inside security train that goes at some knots around the terminals at DFW, looping around the terminal complexes so there’s a train every two minutes.
Long escalator up to the DFW Skylink
I was a touched rushed to take a picture, hence a DFW Skylink train a bit fuzzy at night.
And trust me, when on time constrained connections, that’s a good thing.
And it offers great views too.
Just remember which way round to go, and transit can be pretty quick.
Whilst systems like this need serious thought when being designed – in terms to where to fit the thing, the security implications and the cost.
But used effectively, good airside intra-terminal transits can really improve the passenger experience.
And passenger experience is core to if a passenger would go through a hub again, to choose to live with a hub.. Or walk away to another airport.
And that has happened more than once.
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