Continental Continues Expansion At Newark Int'l
<B> Continental Continues Expansion At Newark Int'l</B>
By Frank Rosci
At Newark International Airport, Continental Airlines' $1 billion-plus expansion project, the Global Gateway program, is part of a massive $3 billion reinvestment strategy at the popular North Jersey airport.
"This project and the one at JFK International is a vote of confidence in the airports, and in the strong and growing economies of New York and New Jersey," said Robert Boyle, executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
Continental, which operates the only major hub in the New York metropolitan area, and carries most of the passengers at Newark, accounting for fully a quarter of the traffic in the region, will invest a total of $800 million. The authority's costs will be up to $200 million.
Continental's four-year Global Gateway program, scheduled for completion in 2002, will expedite the flow of passenger traffic in and out of the region's busiest airport (a record 32.5 million passengers flew from Newark last year, up from 22.5 million in 1988), said Gordon Bethune, the airline's chairman and CEO.
"Expansion will mean greater convenience and improved ease of access for business travelers, who are consistently among our primary passenger groups," said Curtis E. Bourg, vice president of Continental's Newark hub.
Among the changes, a new 300,000-sq.-ft. concourse, to be built in the aircraft parking area currently occupied by Continental Express, will be added to Terminal C. It will be designed to accommodate 12 widebody or 19 narrowbody gates that will handle both international and domestic arrivals and departures.
Terminal C modifications will improve the use of available space and include relocating the arrivals hall to the ground level of the building while converting the existing arrivals hall to a second departure level.
In order to serve the expected increased demand at Terminal C, a new 112,000-sq.-ft. outbound baggage handling building will be constructed adjacent to the terminal.
Another key element of the project is a new Federal Inspection Service facility scheduled to be completed in 2002. The customs and immigration area will allow the processing of up to 1,500 arriving international passengers an hour. The current FIS area in Terminal B is designed to handle up to 3,000 passengers an hour but will not be able to accommodate the airport's projected passenger increases.
Other aspects of the project will include a new Presidents Club, retail area, an airside corridor that will allow passengers to travel from one concourse to another without having to be rescreened through security, a second widebody aircraft maintenance hangar and additional support structures. In all, Terminal C expansion will add 600,000 square feet to the existing 1 million-sq.-ft. terminal and give Continental a total of 56 gates in the terminal.
Newark's Terminal A also will see change in the form of consolidation. As part of that process, Continental will lease five gates in the terminal and renovate the area for certain shuttle flights.
Renovations to four gates and their associated infrastructure were completed in June for flights to Atlanta and Chicago. Continental expects to add the fifth gate in the fourth quarter of this year. Dallas flights also will operate from Terminal A beginning in September. The remaining Continental space and the Port Authority's area of the terminal will be completed by the end of 2000.
Meanwhile, as work proceeds on Continental's projects, the Port Authority is taking steps to enhance Newark's infrastructure, Boyle said. To alleviate road traffic congestion, the Port Authority will construct new access and frontage roads with curbside traffic lanes in front of Terminal C, where most of the airport's vehicular traffic converges daily, increasing the number from three to eight.
Parking at the terminal will double with the addition of a new multi-level 3,400-space parking garage. The Port Authority also is linking the airport's monorail, which will see a new parking garage at Station E, to rail lines served by Amtrak and NJ Transit, and extending one of the airport's main runways to reduce flight delays.