Portland International Jetport | PWM

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A few interior photos from a recent early morning (5:30) departure.
 
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Excellent set of photos! Now if they could just find something to do with that enormous dead space that is the old ticketing hall. Or (since I just got back from London), that's slated to become an enormous Duty-Free shopping zone once the International section is set up. (Really, between security and the gates in the international section of LHR there is a duty-free shopping area that would make Mall of America blush.)
 
Thanks Mark, as far as the dead space goes there are not a lot of options and it will continue be used to display art, Portland Police office and staging for the Honor Flights and other ceremonial events. I do think they plan to eventually rip up the 80's looking tile and replace it with the new white tile that is in the atrium area at the bottom of the escalator so it will all blend in.
 
Yes, that space was the original new terminal--mid 70s? It's so empty now, other than the taxidermy moose, which has become such a Maine cliche. I sent an email to the Jetport publicist last fall offering to pay for the rights to a Maine Imaging hi-rez aerial photo, the one that was taken during the prior fall (2020) with Portland Headlight in the foreground, downtown Portland in the midground, and snowcapped Mt. Washington in the background. It's incredible. You'd think you landed in Shangri-La. They would have then needed to figure out the printing in a large format and either apply to a wall to display for passengers coming down the escalator (first impressions are important), or it could have been adhered to clear plexiglass and lit from behind. Oh well. I tried.
 
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took this picture a couple days ago of a view of gates 8, 9, and 10. A good example of how Portland has seen so much of an increase in the frequency of mainline aircraft. Seeing daily A321s and Boeing 738s from American, Delta, etc. Here you see an American Boeing 738 tail at gate 10, an American Airbus 320 at gate 9, and a Delta Airbus 319 at gate 8!
If you guys enjoy this kind of content I’m happy to add more images!!
 
Mainline snap shot from today: United (6), Delta (5), Southwest (5), American (5), JetBlue (2), Frontier (1), Sun Country (1) for a total of 25 MAINLINE flights and it's nice to see the increased lift from United. NR2Portland, your photos from the ramp are very welcome and maybe you could get out of bed early one morning and get some shots of the fully loaded terminal prior to the morning push! :)
 
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Here’s a look at another common summer sight at PWM, especially during construction on taxiways and runways. A couple Delta aircraft holding on the de-ice ramp because their gate is occupied by other aircraft.
Good solution to this: EXPAND THE TERMINAL!! Would love to see an expansion of the western end of the terminal, where American is, all the way over the parking lot there. (Seen below)
This would allow for about 6 more gates which definitely would help decrease delays.
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That level of a terminal expansion won't happen anytime soon. The two gate addition (post 109) is currently in the planning stage and probably won't materialize until the spring which will help alleviate the need to park overnight aircraft away from the terminal. Keep in mind that a good percentage of PWM's service is considered seasonal which makes it much busier than normal from mid May through mid October and gate availability really only impacts the morning push. It will take the addition of another major airline or a substantial increase of flights to justify the physical expansion of the concourse in my opinion. Due to high construction costs, airports cannot afford to use the "built it and they will come" approach to expansion and the master plan typically outlines future needs over wants. In addition, if just one legacy airline decided to pull out of Portland the upcoming two gate addition may not be necessary. We are very fortunate to have 7 airlines servicing PWM with mainline aircraft which is an impressive feat for a city of only 70,000.
 
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Those Delta planes aren't waiting to unload passengers, are they? From Portlander's comment it sounds like they are empties that came in the night before waiting for later slots, in which case their being parked over there doesn't bother me. In fact, if the Jetport gets to charge them for overnight parking, so much the better!
 
Actually they both had passengers. This is a mid afternoon rush. I was there almost all afternoon and their gates were occupied so they had to wait 20-30 minutes with passengers on board before deplaning at their gate.
 
Let's hope the two gate (13 & 14) addition gets on line in the near future to help with the busy window during the summer and fall tourist seasons. Nice photos NR2. (y)
 
My family and I flew out of LHR last month. Our plane was at a "remote gate," and most passengers took a bus and climbed the old-school stairs to board the plane. However, we have a family member who uses a wheelchair so that was out of the question for us. For that case, the airport had a special jacked-up bus that did the following:
  1. Loaded us into the bus via a safe version of a forklift;
  2. Drove us over the river and through the woods to the plane, then
  3. The entire bus rose up to align with the cabin door opposite the stairs.
I wonder if the old downstairs gates at PWM could be pressed into service on an interim basis for similar deplaning on these crowded days. I have to think leasing a bus or two, even a lift bus like we rode, would be cheaper and faster than building two new additional gates, plus it would eliminate what has to be the "why in hell do I have to wait 30 minutes to get off a plane in Portland, Maine???" reaction of some of the passengers.
 
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Another example of flights arriving then going straight to the ramp to wait for their gate to clear! Southwest only has 1 gate so this is common for them with sometimes 6 flights a day. Hoping for a solution soon! Busy busy times!!
 
The two additional gates are needed and will happen sooner than later and are a reasonable investment when compared to the cost of extending the actual terminal. As far as Southwest Airlines ramp issues, their current schedule has the following arrival times: BWI @ 10:05, MDW @ 12:30, MDW @ 4:50, BWI @ 5:45, BWI @ 9:45. I used to work the ramp at PWM (Delta) and that would be considered a very manageable spacing of arrivals. Now there is an additional flight on Saturday (BNA) that arrives @ 4:20 but the 4:50 flight from MDW is not on the Saturday schedule which should not create any overlap issues unless its FAA routing, equipment or weather related delays. My guess is that Southwest has some staffing issues at PWM which limits their ability to handle more than one aircraft at a time which is becoming a problem with numerous airlines and airports across the country. Gate 5 used to be the spare jetway and was available for all airlines to use for these type of situations. As NR2 previously mentioned, the recent refurbishing of the main runway likely contributed to some of the gate delays during the past month and a half.
 
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