A large art piece called Travessia, by Brazilian artist Henrique Oliveira, greets visitors at the main entrance of the new international concourse at Houston’s Hobby Airport.
The acrylic painting on linen fabric, which measures nearly 20 feet by 11 feet, dominates a wall near the escalators, in much the same way that Southwest Airlines hopes to dominate airline service as the international gateway to Latin America from the city’s oldest commercial airport.
Southwest Airlines implemented the $146 million international terminal project with the City of Houston and Houston Airport System in 2012 as part of its plan to begin offering international service from Houston to the Caribbean, Mexico, Central America and northern South America. Southwest launched its first international flights from the airport in October when it began flying seven daily international flights to six destinations--Belize City, Belize; Cancun, Los Cabos, Mexico City and Puerto Vallarta, Mexico; and San Jose, Costa Rica. It added flights to Montego Bay, Jamaica and Liberia in early November.
Hobby Airport officials expect the new international terminal to be a boon to the airport’s continued growth. They anticipate that the international service will draw nearly 779,000 passengers a year within three years and 1.3 million new travelers a year after 2018. As Houston becomes one of only three U.S. cities with two international airports within its borders, officials also predict that the changes will push an anticipated $1.6 billion in annual revenue into the local economy.
The entire project is something that solidifies Southwest Airlines’ commitment to building a presence in Houston, according to Teresa Laraba, senior vice president of customers for the airline. She told the Houston Business Journal that the project gives the airline the opportunity to have “more growth domestically and internationally.”
What’s New?
“The main impetuous for the project was Southwest Airlines’ corporate decision to begin flying internationally again. They selected several airports in the United States for international service and Hobby Airport was one of them,” says Jonathan Massey, principal of the Aviation Studio at Corgan, lead architect for the new terminal. The low-cost carrier was responsible for the design, construction procurement and communication for the terminal, while the Houston Airport System shouldered the burden of designing and constructing a new parking facility and upgrading roadways to support the terminal.
Massey notes the other projects, such as the new 3,000-space parking garage, were demand driven. “They needed a new garage anyway, so they coordinated those projects so that they could be done at the same time,” he says. As a result the new terminal, built to the west of the existing terminal, and the new parking garage were constructed at the same time. New roadways and airfield pavement areas were also done in tandem with these projects.
The $55 million multi-level parking garage recently opened toward the northwest corner of the existing parking facility. It features a smart parking space locator system and a pedestrian bridge to the terminal. The modified roadway features additional spots for curbside drop off and an access point to the main check in hall.
“The project included a parking garage, skybridge from the garage to the concourse, new roadway, entrance roadway system leading to the terminal, and the terminal project itself, which included a new ticketing hall and five gate expansion,” Massey says. “There were also several related projects like a new central utility plant and the relocation of several facilities that were part of the project.”
The two-story, 280,000-square-foot, terminal building features five international gates capable of handling narrow-body aircraft, such as the Boeing 737 and the A318-320. Southwest Airlines is staking a claim to four of the five gates, leaving one for other carriers to use.
The first level of the terminal houses baggage claim, U.S. Customs & Border Protection and Federal Inspection Services (FIS), while the second level offers an expansive new Southwest Airlines ticket counter, gate hold rooms, and passenger amenities such as restrooms and 16,000 square-feet of concessions and retail space. The new FIS facility features 16 primary/passport inspection stations and three baggage claim areas. “The CBP facility is sized to handle up to 800 to 1,000 passengers per hour while the terminal can be built out to 12 gates in the future if necessary,” says Massey.
The new concessions area within the international terminal is home to several well-known vendors. There are two Peet’s Coffee Shops, a Chick-file-A, a Pappasito’s Cantina restaurant and bar, and a Yia Yia Mary’s. A duty-free shop also exists in this area. In addition to these amenities, travelers are treated to seats with electrical connections. In fact, every other seat has an electrical connection.
Moving Through
While the majority of the project represents new construction (90 percent), portions of the space came from an existing security checkpoint and ticket hall in the middle of the existing terminal. According to Massey a new ticketing hall was built to allow crews to completely reconfigure and expand the existing space into a security checkpoint.
“The existing checkpoint at Hobby Airport was notorious for having very long wait times,” Massey says. “They had eight lines of security but it was in a very cramped space, and the queuing for the security checkpoint was circuitous and not nearly adequate in size.”
He notes that the existing floor plan was inefficient and restricted throughput. “There was an old stair tower in the way that was no longer being used, and some columns holding up a floor above that was not being used,” he says. “We took out the old parts of the building that were not used anymore to create more queue for the passengers, which allowed flow through the security lanes to increase in speed.”
These changes allowed the airport to offer eight security lanes within the same building footprint. Massey points out there are currently three lanes in operation but the space offers enough room for five more.
Find Your Way
The layout within the facility needed to be intuitive as well, adds Massey. “We wanted to make sure that people coming into the new portion of the check-in all were able to intuitively flow toward the security check point, so the architectural design was done in a way to tell people which direction to go,” he says.
The concourse is wide and very streamlined but within the commons area, designers used an architectural feature called a clerestory, which provided a high volume of space that runs across the ticketing hall. This area has a band of glass at the top that lets in light. Visitors’ eyes are automatically drawn to that feature because it is tall and lets in a lot of light, and it’s angled toward the security check point. “As you stand in the space and look up, you see this band of glass and light shooting through the space and you intuitively want to follow this path,” Massey says. “That path leads you to the security checkpoint, so we are using volume and light to direct people to where they need to go next.”
The check in hall also uses Southwest’s latest technology to further enhance the customer experience. “They have self-bagging devices so that passengers can print their own bag tags and put them on their bags themselves,” says Massey. “This project represents the latest and greatest in processing technology as well as a simple and efficient technological solution.”
Built With Speed
The project took a mere 34 months from start to finish—a very aggressive timetable for a project like this. Massey attributes successfully getting this project from A to Z this quickly toward a well integrated team.
“Southwest used the same process they used at Love Field, which is to bring in a contractor very early in the design process,” he says. “What this allows for is for the construction and design teams to work hand in hand, which allows construction to begin as early as possible and the design team to get things into the hands of contractors exactly when they need it to stay on schedule. Working hand in hand and side by side is critical to achieve timelines like this.”
Massey adds a project like this isn’t complicated to design and build. “The complication comes into the timing and how it’s put together,” he says. “A lot of times it’s not about designing a roof so that water stays out—that’s fairly simple. It’s about getting the right stakeholders together and putting the information in front of them so that decisions can be made.”
