CO Upgrading Houston Bush Terminal

The first stage of George Bush Intercontinental Airport's new 23-gate Terminal E opened in June as part of Houston Airport System's overall $3 billion capital improvement program. The $225 million terminal, the airport's fifth, will be used entirely by its largest carrier, Continental Airlines, offering the airline more space for growing its domestic and international service.

Continental currently uses the new terminal for domestic flights, with Terminal D housing its international service. When a new Federal Inspection Services building, which will sit between Terminals D and E, is completed in early 2005, Continental will migrate all of its international flights to E as well. At that point, Terminal D will undergo a complete renovation and eventually lodge all of the foreign carriers. The centralized FIS building will allow the processing of all travelers in one building.

Seven gates on Terminal E's west concourse already are in operation, while the east concourse is scheduled for completion by December. The center of the facility will feature the "world's largest" Presidents Club lounge—two levels and 25,000 square feet—which also will open by year-end. The Presidents Club will have 60 private business cubicles and showers for customers arriving from overseas in BusinessFirst.

"Travelers using Terminal E will notice flat-screen monitors displaying flight information," while "eService terminals for self-checkin will be available at every gate," HAS said.

Terminal E is accessible from the parking garage attached to the east side of Terminal C and soon will be connected to the south concourse of Terminal C. An above-ground people mover that runs from Terminals B to C will be extended from C to the FIS building in what HAS spokesperson Ernest DeSoto called, "a great project," but it may pose "a challenge" with traffic. "To some extent or another, all of the projects will affect passengers. Traffic right now is really tough," he said. For those renting vehicles, a new consolidated rental car facility opened on Aug. 7 that houses nine rental car firms.

To combat air traffic, the airport will open its third parallel runway on Oct. 31, "so we can land three planes at a time," DeSoto said. Additionally, HAS last May completed an $81.5 million project that expanded another runway.

"With four runways now able to handle any commercial aircraft and with one more scheduled for completion next year, this airport is now well positioned to handle the tremendous growth forecast for the next decade and beyond," said aviation director Rick Vacar. Annual aircraft operations are projected to increase from the current 480,000-plus to more than 828,000 by 2017, an annual average of about 4 percent.

Passengers should not be too inconvenienced by Terminal C's concourse facelift, which the airport expects to have completed by September 2004."We're going to redo the whole concourse, inside and out," DeSoto said, replacing and adding to the lighting, power distribution, voice and data systems, public address, fire alarm, access control and building area additions at both the ground and concourse levels. Afterward, DeSoto said, HAS will "focus on Terminal B next. Terminal D will be the last one tackled.

"Every day is a challenge to figure out how to keep operations going and make it as smooth as possible for travelers," he added. "To be honest, there are days when it is not all smooth."