Phl Facilities

[BoeingBoy]

Common ramp design throughout nearly everywhere. Provides gate with options to handle variety of aircraft sizes as well as multiple other factors for gate / ramp / pax.

fatherAbraham,

I think you may have misunderstood the context of the question.....

Row wasn't asking why the concourse is above ramp level, which seems to be the gist of your answer. The question was why the concourse/holding areas are above the level of the door to the jetway, requiring the ramp from the boarding area to the jetway door.

Frankly, I've wondered the same thing about the relatively few airports that feature this design (not counting some international facilities that use this feature to allow different routes for deplaning passengers to get to customs and enplaning passengers from the boarding area).

Relatively few terminals are designed this way. Even in PHL, look at the difference between the gates on the original B/C concourse and the newer gates at the additions on the end of B/C.

Jim

 

[RowUnderDCA]

Jim-

Yes, you get my question. And you see by more recent post, that I did come up with two options as possible solutions, but that neither seemed very satisfactory.

There was a terminal that I think has been just torn down recently in TPA. I could never figure out the pax access/egress to aircraft from viewing the terminal from afar. I think that seemed to anticipate that an aircraft would actually taxi below the hold room or some such.

 

[BoeingBoy]

That terminal was the next one north of ours. I don't know if it was originally designed for international use or what, but it had been unused for years.

It seems like most places that use this design incorporate it for international gates - CLT D-con for example. Whether that's the original reason at PHL may be lost in the mists of time.

Jim

 

[fatherabraham]

Rowunderdca and Jim,

Yea, I figured I might of misunderstood. Read it multiple times and thought answer was obvious.
Take care

FA

 

[BoeingBoy]

Hey, I live in a glass house so I'm not about to start chunking rocks.....

Jim

 

[tadjr]

The old airside E terminal in TPA was the one that had this design and it did not have international flights. The waiting area was on one level with the shops, etc and to get to the plane you had to take an elevator or escalator and then a short jetway to the plane. It was not a very good design, especially if one or the other broke. USAir was located in this terminal right before the merger and the couple of times I went to watch them board it was chaotic at best. I think the main reason for the design was aesthetic since the waiting area had an unobstructed view over the top of the planes.
The current US terminal in TPA (Airside F) is the international terminal and there are currently 5 gates with a ramp design as mentioned, but the ramp splits halfway down and the doors lock to permit entry to customs and immigration down the ramp, or doors open, access to the main boarding area via another ramp up.