=20 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- This article was sent to you by someone who found it on SFGate. The original article can be found on SFGate.com here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=3D/c/a/2005/10/23/BUGA1FAD6P= 59.DTL --------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunday, October 23, 2005 (SF Chronicle) Oakland airport in a growth spurt/With a big influx of new passengers, faci= lity is getting new digs to match David Armstrong, Chronicle Staff Writer "Nothing," Oakland International Airport's Steven Grossman said, "makes = an airport director's heart beat faster than steel going up." Grossman's heart must really be aflutter these days. Oakland International, where he is director of aviation, is intensifying a construction and overall growth spurt that began in earnest several years ago, and is likely to keep going apace until at least 2025, when the airport foresees handling more than twice as many passengers than it does now. Oakland handled 14.3 million passengers in 2004, up from 10.6 million in 2000, Grossman said. Cargo growth is up even more, growing by 6 percent in 2004 from 2003, he added. Rapid growth has crowded Oakland International, where long lines at check-in and security checkpoints have become common. Unlike many other airports, which see peak business in early morning and late afternoon, Oakland has an additional peak late at night, when speciality and charter airlines like SunTrips board and unload passengers in the wee hours. Oakland is bursting at the seams. To catch up, Oakland International -- a unit of the Port of Oakland -- is expanding and renovating its jam-packed Terminal 2, repaving the 1950s-era airplane aprons outside its two passenger terminals, using a $16 million grant from the Federal Aviation Administration to install new technology for screening passengers' bags, and opening a renovated business jet center in its North Field facility that has been restored to its 1932 Art Deco splendor. "It looks like the set for an Indiana Jones movie," Grossman said of the facility, which he said cost $4 million to upgrade. Additionally, Oakland International, the nation's 31st-largest airport by passenger traffic, is rewriting its master plan. The plan, which Grossman said would cover $800 million to $900 million of work, should be finished by February. In what may prove to be a controversial move, the bayside airport is anticipating building an additional runway to handle growth, Grossman said, although there is no firm date for it. "We'll leave that for another day," he said. Oakland's growth has induced growing pains as well as opportunities. Although there has been occasional speculation by press and public that Oakland may need to build a third passenger terminal, no third terminal is on the horizon. When United Airlines consolidated its maintenance operation at San Francisco International Airport last year and vacated a cavernous maintenance facility at Oakland, various uses -- including possible conversion to a passenger terminal -- were considered. But the big building hasn't lent itself to quick and practical conversio= n, Grossman said, and it won't be used again as a maintenance center by another airline. "There's just not a demand for that now," he said. As it is, the facility is scheduled to be demolished in two or three years, according to Grossman. Early this year, Oakland International also had to scale back an ambitio= us plan to build a multimillion-dollar parking garage when airport studies indicated it was likely to go over budget. Partly in response, the airport began to collect a small percentage of revenues from private, off-site airport parking companies that ferry travelers to and from their lots. That helps the airport capture some parking revenue but is presumably less than it would have been able to snare with a multilevel garage. Still, the airport's financial situation has been strong enough for Standard & Poor's to issue it a A+ long-term credit rating last year and a "stable" outlook for the next two years. "They are performing as well as we expected. They are taking prudent long-term steps and not building facilities that are not needed," said Kurt Forsgren, a director for S&P. According to Forsgren, the airport's continued growth in passenger traff= ic has put it in a good position to come up with the revenue from tenants and other sources to fund its ambitious capital improvement program. Oakland has experienced flurries of activity before, but many occurred long ago. Back in the early days of civil aviation, Oakland was a West Coast terminus for the nation's fledgling air mail service, and it served as home airport for the daring, doomed aviator Amelia Earhart. Then it settled into years of relative quiet. As recently as the early 1990s, Oakland felt like a small-town airport, with a modest-size terminal, a relaxed atmosphere and easy parking. That began to change in the mid-1990s, when low-fare pioneer Southwest Airlines began to expand its presence in Oakland. Low-fare newcomer JetBlue Airways jumped in late in the decade, Southwest pulled out of San Francisco International and expanded even more in Oakland and air freight giant FedEx Corp. increased its Oakland cargo hub as it increased its Asia and transpacific business. During the dot-com bust, which shrank business at SFO and San Jose Mineta International Airport, business kept growing at Oakland International, which shrewdly remade itself into the Bay Area's low-fare leader. Indeed, the remake and expansion at Terminal 2 is being done in no small measure to satisfy Southwest's desire to fly more planes from Oakland. "We are right now operating at close to capacity," Southwest spokeswoman Whitney Eichinger said. "We obviously want to fly more planes. We have an average of 10 flights per gate per day in Oakland, so adding more gates provides an opportunity for growth." The terminal expansion will give Southwest three new gates, which it expects to start operating in the second half of 2007, she said. Southwest has 11 gates in Oakland and handles about 60 percent of the airport's passengers. "Oakland is an excellent, excellent airport," Eichinger said. "It is low-cost, and we get fast turn-around of our planes. We have a great relationship with the airport, and we are working closely with them in this construction. It's a great operating environment for Southwest." Overall, Oakland is now the Bay Area's second-largest airport -- up from third in the late 1990s, after which time it leapfrogged San Jose. The Bay Area's largest airport, by far, is SFO, which handled 32.2 milli= on passengers in 2004 -- more than Oakland expects to see in 2025 -- and is the 21st-busiest airport in the world, according to Airports Council International. San Francisco handles more than 90 percent of the area's long-haul international travel, a part of the business that low-fare carriers only nibble at. While Mexico and the Caribbean have become popular destinations for some low-fare carriers, long-haul flights to Asia and Europe are still the domain of major legacy carriers, which pamper high-paying passengers who want more creature comforts than most discounters provide on short-haul flights. The U.S. airline business continues to be turbulent, tossed about by high fuel prices, fears of terrorism and labor strife. Still, Oakland International sees mostly clear skies ahead for the long-term. "The new airport master plan anticipates 18 million passengers in 2010," Grossman said. "In 2025, we expect 30 million. Where we'll put all those people, I don't know." Oakland is adding five gates to Terminal 2, where Southwest runs most of its operations. That process is well under way, Grossman said, with steel girders going up and about 60 percent of the building's skin in place. "The dirt is flying," he said. The repaving of aircraft aprons will proceed in three phases, he said, a= nd the airport will operate during the construction. A more sophisticated baggage-screening program is also expected to be in place by December, he said. The airport is also trying to be more environmentally sensitive. It instituted a more wide-ranging recycling program early this year, and is studying the performance of new solar-energy mirrors on the roof of the main FedEx building, to see if solar power is a viable option for other parts of the airport, Grossman said. "We'll know more about that in a year or so." In the long-term, Oakland will need a new runway, Grossman said, adding that there are so many projects already under way, the airport hasn't seriously advanced a case for a runway yet. "Let's face it, there's no easy way," he said. "Several years from now, there will have to be a process for the region to address it and talk about what we all ought to do." Oakland International Airport 31st-largest airport in the United States by passenger traffic Second-largest airport in Bay Area Handled 14.3 million passengers in 2004, up from 10.6 million in 2000 $110 million Terminal 2 expansion will add five gates and a food court, plus new baggage-screening facilities. Sources: Airports Council International, Oakland International Airport E-mail David Armstrong at davidarmstrong@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx --------------= -------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 2005 SF Chronicle