I had an opportunity to fly through Northwest's new Detroit hub on Monday. Although I was only there for an hour, it seems like a very nice facility and certainly an immense improvement over the old terminal. There are still a few bugs to work out - the people movers in the regional terminal aren't working yet, and there are no chairs there either; apparently there are garbage troubles; and over all there is still a construction-area odour to the place - but it should be a big hit with travelers. The ambience is airy, with high ceilings and huge windows. The terminal itself is higher off the ground than normal. This, combined with the much more serious trouble of strange anti-glare polka dots on the windows, will make photography of aircraft from inside the terminal utterly impossible. This a pretty big flaw in my opinion, but only from a spotter's point of view. For the average passenger, they probably won't even be noticed. The facility is quite huge, about a mile long from end to end. There are many people movers, as well as a monorail train that stops at three terminals located above the concourse. The centerpiece of the terminal is a very cool fountain. Underground passage from the regional concourse to the main concourse is fitted with flashing lights and music, an imitation of United's ORD terminal, no doubt, though the effect is much less soothing. The regional terminal has jetways at every position, even for the Saabs. Unloading took a while, as the jetway operators are just starting to figure things out. Apparently they had already hit four planes as of Monday, so they were taking it extra-slow. There are a good number of shops and restaurants, certainly more than in the old terminal. Views of aircraft operations are excellent from anywhere in the terminal, though as I say photography will be impossible. International arrivals are integrated with departures in the main terminal at eight gates, which will be a great convenience. Inspection capacity downstairs is advertised to be able to accommodate eight full 747s in an hour. Incidentally, if you sign up now at NWA.com, you can receive 1,001 WorldPerks miles for each trip through the new terminal before the end of the month. Evan McElravy emcelr@po-box.mcgill.ca http://users.penn.com/~cpa1/