shihchi wrote:To set the record straight about the Lambert Expansion:
The project was developed and approved by the airport and the FAA, not the design and construction firms that later participated in the project.
The project did not involve public money. If you flew, you paid for it. If you didn’t fly, you didn’t pay for it.
Some pilots were for it; some were against it. Opponents said that aircraft taxiing to the far end of the new runway would make it inefficient, failing to mention that virtually no aircraft would be required to taxi to that end of the runway. Reality since the new runway has opened verifies the latter point; aircraft depart to the west and land from the west, so they taxi to and from the end nearest to the terminal.
Like all airports, Lambert has an obligation to provide an efficient airfield to airlines, so they can efficiently serve passengers. In the 1990s, TWA was Lambert’s major carrier, thus the airport had an obligation to provide TWA with an efficient airfield. The new runway would do that, so the airport built it. Delays because of weather in St. Louis have, in fact, decreased since the new runway opened, which was what it was designed for.
The factors that did in TWA and have thrown commercial aviation into its chaotic status were unprecedented, and no one predicted them in the 1990s. The predictions that were made by opponents in the 1990s have not occurred.
The runway was designed primarily for landings to the west parallel with landings on the north runway. Planes landing on the new runway would, in fact, have significant time and distance factors as far as taxiing. The only way the whole thing could make anything resembling sense is for an airside complex to be built between the new runway and the strip in front of the terminals.
In light of what has happened in the airline industry here, air traffic has dropped so much due to TWA's demise and AA's significant drop in the number of flights that delays are pretty much a non-issue.
