For the next nine months or so, passengers on about 46 flights per day at Salt Lake City International Airport will take shuttles to their airplanes parked on the tarmac.
The airport began such operations on Monday in preparation to begin demolition next week on a long arm of Concourse E as part of the massive $3.6 billion project to rebuild the airport in place.
It affects mostly smaller regional aircraft that had flown out of Concourse E. Passengers will wait at a gate, present tickets and board a bus to their airplane, said airport spokeswoman Nancy Volmer.
“When they deplane, they will take a shuttle over to the concourse,” she said. “It's something we've been preparing for. And we I think there's about 22 shuttles that are on this program now.”
She said the operations are expected to continue until the first phase of the new airport opens, scheduled for Sept. 15.
Volmer said such operations are common at European airports, and large U.S. airports exceed the capacity of available gates.
(Courtesy Salt Lake City International Airport) A diagram showing where shuttles will operate for some flights that had departed from Concourse E, which is being demolished as part of airport reconstruction.
