Construction work is not even finished on the new midfield terminal at Detroit’s Metro Airport, but that didn’t stop airport officials from announcing another project this week.
Officials said they will begin to demolish the existing Smith terminal once the new 97-gate midfield terminal opens in December.
The construction is designed to accommodate some of the growth that the airport has experienced the past few years. Last year, 35.5 million passengers passed through the airport, up from 32.1 million in 1999.
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Unlike Chicago, Detroit is moving quickly to deal with its airport growth. Detroit Metro has been under a virtual state of construction for the past five years.
At Chicago’s O’Hare, however, plans to build two new terminals and rebuild part of Terminal 2 are moving at a snail’s pace.
The multibillion-dollar expansion program, announced more than two years ago, still awaits approval by the Federal Aviation Administration.
Review redux: The ink on the critical report about the airline industry’s customer service plans by U.S. Department of Transportation Inspector General Ken Mead was hardly dry last week when the office began plans for a follow-up study.
That study, however, could become a linchpin in the proposed $11.6 billion acquisition of US Airways by Elk Grove Township-based United Airlines. As part of the acquisition, American Airlines will acquire 20 percent of US Airways operations for $1.5 billion.
In a notice issued this week to the nation’s airlines, the office said it will review how mergers affect customer service efforts.
It said it is going to pay special attention to the 1996 merger of the Union Pacific Railroad with the Southern Pacific Railroad. That should be fertile territory for the inspector general’s office.
Rail service throughout much of the Southwest ground to a halt in 1997 after the Surface Transportation Board allowed Union Pacific to acquire Southern Pacific. Rail service did not start improving until after federal officials forced Union Pacific to allow competing railroads to help move freight that was backed up on main lines and sidings from California to Chicago.
Many people have argued that customers and passengers will suffer if a merger of US Airways and United is approved.
United, indicating it wants to avoid disruptions, has told its labor unions that it plans to merge the two operations very slowly. Instead of the two-year time frame that had been planned, the airline says it may take as long as five years to fully merge operations of the two carriers.
And AirTran Airways, an Orlando-based discount carrier that has been objecting to the planned merger, this week demanded that the DOT force American and United to give up more landing and takeoff positions at Washington’s Ronald Reagan National Airport. AirTran, formerly known as ValuJet, argued that United and American will control 66 percent of the market at National and 80 percent of the market at Dulles International Airport.
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