DFW Upgrades Terminals, Offers Internet Access
<B> DFW Upgrades Terminals, Offers Internet Access</B>
By Robert Selwitz
Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport is readying for 21st-century business travel with Internet kiosks, new and improved terminals and a new people mover.
Dallas/Fort Worth is one of four major metropolitan airports that allows passengers to access a GTE Cyberbooth. For 33 cents per minute and the swipe of a card, the seven-foot-tall units enable users to check e-mail, gather business news and stock reports and view weather forecasts.
The booth also features a pay phone and dataports for laptop-toting travelers. "If necessary, travelers can simultaneously make a phone call and retrieve their e-mail," said GTE spokesman Bill Kula.
The airport features ten Cyberbooth locations: Three each in terminals 2E and 3E (for American Airlines passengers), three in 4E (where Delta calls) and one in 2W, home to America West, Continental, United and smaller carriers.
According to Kula, the Dallas facility was the debut airport site for his company's Internet product, in August 1996. Today, he said, individual usage averages 12 to 15 minutes per customer. In terms of speed, the kiosk can download files at 128 kilobits per second, 10 times faster than a conventional modem.
Meanwhile, as the world's third busiest airport in terms of passenger volume and second busiest in takeoffs and landings, Dallas/Fort Worth is embarking on a multimillion dollar series of upgrades, including the construction of new terminals, expanding older facilities, replacing its quaint but slow "people mover" train system and improving car rental access.
In addition, said airport spokesperson Angel Biasati, "we opened our seventh runway in October, and are extending three others by 2,000 feet each." This will translate into a decrease in ground delays "since we will be better able to accommodate our large number of commuter flights."
Biasati noted that Dallas/Fort Worth expects to build its fifth and sixth terminals, 3W and 4W, and add five gates to the existing 2W terminal.
The first of the proposed terminals could be available within three years; the second would take an additional five years to build. As for inter-terminal transit, a $450-million elevated people mover will connect all present and future terminals.
On the ground transportation front, plans call for a consolidated car rental facility along International Parkway on the airport's south side.
When it debuts in the fall of 1999, the new DFW airport car rental complex will replace two current facilities on the terminal's north and south ends.