Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT) is recording for the end of the new $1.7 billion terminal, the terminal will open sometime in October. Gensler, HDR and Luis Vidal + Architects, a joint venture of the construction and engineering company, designed the terminals, all systems and areas have been completed and rigorously tested.
“Construction and operational preparation are not equal,” said Daniel Bryan, an advisor to the Operational Preparation and Transition Team at Leader Pit.
Before the official opening date can be set and announced, PIT will have two public trial days or dress up, with volunteers acting as passengers to help ensure everything – everyone – everyone – is ready for a big day.
The first terminal test will be conducted on Saturday, September 20, with about 1,000 of about 18,000 responding to the airport’s initial volunteer calls.
“We want to recreate the first day before it actually happens,” Brian said.
Volunteers will be provided with scripts to follow their airport trips. Just as passengers pretending to be ticketed on a rush day trip, they will do all the real passengers doing when traveling from the roadside to the gate – check bags, snowboards and golf clubs and pass security checkpoints. They just won’t board the plane.
Bryan and his team are confident that all the tested and retested core systems will work. “This will be the first time we’ve seen buildings active,” he said. So they will have feedback on acoustics, audio levels of public broadcast systems, wayfinding and tips, and collecting feedback from volunteer travelers. In addition to testing all airport systems, Brian noted that these trials also provide opportunities for all airport staff to practice, learn and build confidence in the team.
“When the first passengers walked into the door on Day 1, we wanted our people not only to know what to do, we wanted them to know they’ve done it,” he said.
The goal is the same before opening its $3.8 billion terminal 1 of its new light and artwork on Sunday, September 23 by Gensler and Turner-Flatiron in partnership with Turner-Flatiron to open the passenger test day on Sunday, September 14, on Sunday, September 14.
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SAN Chief Development Officer Angela Shafer-Payne is confident as the airport requires contractors to exchange each system in operational mode.
“For example, a separate luggage handling system has an 8,000-page list. They last for weeks, and they run for weeks throughout the system. But simulation days are another type of system activation.”
A thousand volunteers were given the card, told them the passengers they were going to play (for example, a business traveler or a family of four) and were instructed to park them in the parking lot, find a specific airline counter, check luggage, browse for safety, access a concession, perhaps a restroom or pet rescue area, and then reach their gates.
The SAN test day survey is still being calculated, but all feedback will be valuable.
Indeed, San Airport learned from testers that in some areas, the paging system is too big in some areas and not big enough in others, and the outdoor dining deck and oversized luggage belts require better signage.
However, the signage is just one element of comments from Kansas City International Airport (MCI) after the Public Trial Day International Airport (MCI) held before the opening of the new $1.5 billion marina in 2023.
Even with a test day on Valentine’s Day, “tickets for the event are so hot,” said Justin Meyer, deputy director of aviation, marketing and aviation service development at the airport.
Designed, planned and designed by Skidder, Owings and Merrill, the new independent airport is one of the city’s most obvious infrastructure projects in about 50 years. “So there’s a lot of desire and civic pride being one of the first people to test and see it,” Meyer said.
The “use” of test terminal technology is one of the main goals of testing day.
“We wanted to make sure the scanner was scanning, the system was talking to each other, the ticket printer was printing, and putting the bag in the system could be transported to the correct luggage belt, and that kind of thing,” Meyer said.
All systems worked well, but Meyer said there were tweaks to volunteer feedback, some signage adjustments, and some changes were made to the bathroom after it was opened.
“On the day of terminal testing, but once we opened, we found that the tissue was being chopped and ended up spreading a piece of shredded tissue across the floor. Now, we have different, more durable tissues.” The soap dispenser also distributes too much soap; recalibrates the problem solved.
Then there are many questions about the test log volunteers missing out on simulated flights.
The test day script requires volunteers to travel through the airport to their gates for booked flights. “But everyone was so excited to get into the terminal and walk around that many were late or not out of the field,” Meyer said. “So it was a fun gain for us.”
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