F
From 2004 to 2012, DFW was
one of two US Army
"Personnel Assistance Points"
which received US troops
returning from wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan for rest and
recuperation. This ended on March 14, 2012
and Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International
Airport became the sole Personnel
Assistance Point.
Aerial view of DFW in 2007
Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport has five terminals and 165 gates
The airport is designed with expansion in mind and can theoretically accommodate up to
thirteen terminals and 260 gates, although this level of expansion is unlikely to be reached
in the foreseeable future. The first four terminals were designed by Hellmuth, Obata and
Kassabaum and Brodsky, Hopf & Adler.
The terminals at DFW are semicircular (except for the newest terminal, Terminal D, which is
a "square U" shape) and built around the airport's central north–south arterial road, Spur
97, also known as "International Parkway". Until the late 1990s, they were designated by a
number (2 being northernmost, 4 being southernmost) and a letter suffix ("E" for East, "W"
for West). This system was later scrapped and the terminals are now lettered from A to E.
Terminals A, C, and E (from north to south) are on the east side of the airport, while
Terminals B and D (from north to south) are on the west side.
DFW's terminals are designed to minimize the distance between a passenger's car and
airplane, and to reduce traffic around terminals. A consequence of this layout is that
connecting passengers had to walk extremely long distances between gates (in order to
walk from one end of the semicircular concourse to the other, one must walk the entire
length; there were no shortcuts between the ends). The original people mover train
(Airtrans APM, later the American Airlines TrAAin) which opened with the airport was
notoriously slow (17 mph (27 km/h)), uni-directional (running only in a counter-clockwise
direction) and was located outside the secured area (thus requiring travelers to go through
the security process again). It was replaced by Skylink in April 2005 after serving
approximately 250 million passengers. Skylink serves all five terminals at a considerably
higher speed (up to 35 mph (56 km/h)), is bi-directional, and is located inside the secured
area.
KDFW Dallas
July 2017
www.alliance-airways.net
4 ! 0