When they were built, airport designers were extremely concerned about walking distances from the curb to the plane. By installing the people movers they could claim that Tampa had very short walking distances (including the APM ride).
The only real assistance people need over a few hundred metres is a travelator. Here in Melbourne the long walk at t4 gives you a bit of a boost. Anxious people rushing to a flight don't like being made to wait for an unnecessary vehicle.
Makes me think of Gatwick’s south terminal, which used to have a people mover between the main and satellite terminals when I was a kid, but got replaced with a walkable corridor to increase capacity. https://youtu.be/4X3hbdnZzEg?t=682&si=fd9_Lr3yuSLj5ode
You can walk between, most of the time, have done it twice and its miserable, especially in the summer time. There’s alot of construction right now, so airsides A,C, and E all have their walkeay closed.
they’re currently expanding the security at A & E, so the security configs don’t allow for the outdoor crossover. Also, A and C are getting new trains soon, so the tracks need a bit of work to handle them, so that’s why 1 train is out of service at 3/4 airsides.
there too was the monorail in the long term garage, but they recently tore it out. They used the same tech as the JAX skyway. All were scrapped onsite :(
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