Seattle Area Airports and Aviation News

[Seasun]

Understood. Trusses deflect/sag too. For anyone curious about this - beams, trusses, pretty much any horizontal structure subject to deflecting might have camber built into the design and fabrication. Things get interesting when the camber doesn't come out as expected or comes out too much. +/-1" of camber (measured at its midpoint) is sometimes fabricated into a truss or a regular beam so when it's installed it deflects to ideally perfectly horizontal. Eliminating or greatly reducing camber would usually make a truss or beam so heavy to be uneconomical.

[Capitol Hill]

Which, knowing how this project has progressed, is probably what the POS did.

[cameronrex]

Originally Posted by Seasun

Understood. Trusses deflect/sag too. For anyone curious about this - beams, trusses, pretty much any horizontal structure subject to deflecting might have camber built into the design and fabrication. Things get interesting when the camber doesn't come out as expected or comes out too much. +/-1" of camber (measured at its midpoint) is sometimes fabricated into a truss or a regular beam so when it's installed it deflects to ideally perfectly horizontal. Eliminating or greatly reducing camber would usually make a truss or beam so heavy to be uneconomical.

I'm nodding and agreeing with you (with a look of understanding on my face) even though I have no clue what you wrote.

[Matt the Engineer]

Hold a 10' long 1/2" diameter pvc pipe at one end, a friend hold the other end at the other. It'll sag. But buy a slightly deformed one that's curved just a little, and hold it such that curvy bit is pointing upward, and gravity will push it down closer to flat. Structural engineers design things intentionally bent by a specific amount such that they end up nicely close to flat.

[Ginkgo]

As mentioned at the beginning, we had to "wanded" by security before boarding the buses because we would be entering the North Satellite. We alighted from the buses near some new recycling compacters and composters which will help the airport get up to speed on recycling and composting which it has fallen behind on. Then inside back-of-house to see newly installed state-of-the-art HVAC, electrical, and fire detection infrastructure.






A door opened and voilà, we were in the passenger area.


We had a tour of the gorgeous Alaska Airlines Lounge, but were asked not to take pictures therein.

[Tespia]

Some random updates I've noticed:

Alaska is fortifying its schedule to many mid- and trans-continental markets this coming spring/summer/and presumably early fall.
SEA-MCI (Kansas City) increases from 2x to 3x daily in the spring.
SEA-RDU (Raleigh/Durham) increase from 1x to 2x daily.
SEA-CHS (Charleston) increases from 5x weekly to daily.

SEA-MCO (Orlando) and SEA-OGG (Maui) increase from 2x to 3x this winter.
SEA-FLL (Fort Lauderdale) increases from 1x to 2x daily this winter.
SEA-TPA (Tampa) actually increases from 1x to 2x daily from December and onwards.

Delta is adding SEA-TPA in May (1x daily).
Singapore is a adding a 5th weekly flight from March 30th (currently 4x weekly).

[velciane]

I just did the SEA-MCO with Alaska this past week, and both directions was booked 100%. They did have significant issues last night having enough gates - I sat in taxi for almost an hour before we parked and could get off the plane.

[SeaJamie]

Originally Posted by velciane

I just did the SEA-MCO with Alaska this past week, and both directions was booked 100%. They did have significant issues last night having enough gates - I sat in taxi for almost an hour before we parked and could get off the plane.

Ouch! Those FL -> SEA flights are some of the longest non-stops in the lower 48 already. The last three years I've gone to an event in Ft. Lauderdale in February, and two of those years I've been trying to get back to Seattle on snow days. It's lead to some extremely unpleasant travel days.

[geoffloftus]

Yow. Sounds grim. I thought that the new hardstand was supposed to deal with that problem.

When is the North Satellite supposed to be finished?

[AKH]

It's obvious that SeaTac is way under built for its volume (I realize we are in an unprecedented growth cycle but there has been very little capacity added in the last 20 years - The rebuild of concourse A and the North Satellite are nice upgrades but really don't add the capacity we need). I did some quick research and Las Vegas and Charlotte are just behind SeaTac in passenger volume and those airports have 110 and 115 gates respectively (SeaTac has ~88 gates). Heathrow which handles 80M passengers has a relatively modest 133 jetway gates but a whopping 60+ hardstand gates. Time to get the second terminal built to add 20-25 more gates and quit talking about it.

[Capitol Hill]

:: What he said. So many of you may not be aware, but currently Delta and Alaska are flying mainline aircraft to close by cities for their last flight of the night, not due to passenger capacity, but because here isn’t parking space in Seattle. An example would be flying mainline jets to Vancouver, Spokane, Portland, Pasco, etc.

[mhays]

Part of me loves that our city has these problems. It's better to be a city that's challenged with fitting ever more stuff into existing places, vs. a city where office buildings are set behind lawns.

[AndersTheSwede]

Flew in from JFK on Friday on a "110%" booked Alaskan flight. We ended up at a hardstand with a bus to the satellite. At first I was pretty put off. Here's all these NYers first experience with SeaTac, and it's a bus with a maze decent to the terminal. I wondered why bother with these flights if there isn't the infrastructure to really support them.

But then in the shuttle to parking everyone was trading stories of being held on the plane for 1:30hrs before getting a gate, with passengers becoming increasingly irate, especially ones with connecting flights. And I realized I was lucky...

[JiminyCricket]

I doubt NYers are complaining, parts of JFK are nice-ish, but EWR and LGA are poopshows through and through.

[smerfylicious]

Well at least the new IAF is still...kind of...on track for an August opening? :/

[-Corey-]

Originally Posted by SeaJamie

Ouch! Those FL -> SEA flights are some of the longest non-stops in the lower 48 already. The last three years I've gone to an event in Ft. Lauderdale in February, and two of those years I've been trying to get back to Seattle on snow days. It's lead to some extremely unpleasant travel days.

They’re terrible! I moved from miami and I usually fly with Delta only (to Atlanta first, American is terrible too) and never fly in Spirit! Or you won’t ever want to fly again LOL.

[smerfylicious]

Originally Posted by geoffloftus

Yow. Sounds grim. I thought that the new hardstand was supposed to deal with that problem.

When is the North Satellite supposed to be finished?

North Satellite with its 10 additional gates will be finished in mid-2021.

We're supposed to find out more about the 2nd terminal some time this fall, but I have a feeling they'll be late...

[NikolasM]

The Port Of Seattle needs to quit hemming and hawing and commit to a plan and start building yesterday.

[mhays]

Looks like we'll get an update on their five year capital plan and current budget tomorrow. In a quick look I'm not seeing downloadable stuff online. However, per today's DJC:

"The first open house will be held 5:30 p.m.-7:30 p.m. Tuesday in the atrium at Pier 69. The second will be held at the same time on Oct. 28 at Sea-Tac Airport Conference Center."

[AndersTheSwede]

The departures line-up at 34R last Sunday around 10am.

IMG_2162