Laura Sturza
Many passengers at Burbank-Glen- dale-Pasadena-Airport still refer
to its old-fashioned charms, but recent construction is one of
several projects that have kept the facility up-to-date.
"You would check in at the gate, which was out of doors," Burbank
Airport Commissioner Don Brown said.
"People would get their ticket inside and stand outside ... there
would be [agents] there to get your ticket.
"You'd walk outside out on the tarmac and you'd board the
airplane."
It has been 16 years since the Federal Aviation Administration
required the airport to put more distance between parked airplanes
and the runway, which "gave rise to building the east concourse a
year later," Airport Authority spokesman Victor Gill said.
The airport is working on a 40,000-square-foot security
enhancement project, with the passenger-screening area and
luggage-detection systems expected to be finished by the end of the
year, Gill said. The $25-million project is designed to meet federal
security guidelines by providing space for added security equipment
and personnel.
Travelers used to check in at the terminal and walk 300 feet under
a covered walkway to a pair of connected trailers with "90 molded
chairs," Gill said. Passengers then walked up to 800 feet to board
their planes.
"It was a very colorful boarding procedure -- especially on a
rainy day," Gill said.
Today's passengers wait in an indoor holding area and step outside
where their aircraft is parked.
Burbank was not alone in its passenger processing, with John Wayne
and Ontario airports offering "equally primitive" or worse
circumstances, Gill said. John Wayne's holding space was so sparse
that "they would literally put passengers on airplanes as holding
rooms."
Improvements were made at the Orange County terminal in 1990 and
at Ontario in the late 1990s, Gill said.
Security checks today are also quite different from those used in
the late 1980s.
"It was much faster then because all you did was hand them a
ticket and board the plane," Brown said. "There was no security, no
terrorist threat. So in those days, all [they] did was check to see
if you had a ticket, and you got on the plane."
