lux-Airport announced today that Terminal B will be reactivated as from summer 2017.
Due to extremely the fast growth in the last few months the current Terminal A is rapidly becoming saturated. With the new airlines Hop! to Lyon, LOT to Warsaw, Aegean to Athens and in September Flybe to Manchester and Birmingham, and finally Ryanair to London Stansted and Porto the airport is becoming very busy. Furthermore Luxair, easyJet, Lufthansa, KLM and British Airways all have added more flights and more passengers. As a result lux-Airport needed to review its terminal capacity. At the request of François Bausch, Minister of Sustained Development and Infrastructure, the planned opening date was brought forward from 2018 to 2017 to cope with rising demand.
Terminal B was initially built in 2004 and was connected to the old terminal. With the opening of the new terminal A, the old terminal was demolished which left Terminal B isolated and unused for the last 8 years. It continued to be maintained and kept in working condition. It was initially designed as a regional aircraft terminal, specifically for the Luxair Embraer 145 aircraft, which this year will be completely phased out. Hence, the terminal and the apron areas will be modified to enable it to welcome a greater variety of bigger regional aircraft, such as the Luxair Q400’s, the Lufthansa CRJ 700 and 900’s, the KLM and Lot Embraer 175’s or the KLM Fokker 70’s. Clearly it will remain a regional terminal. It will have a total of 9 aircraft positions.
Terminal B will be connected to terminal A via an extension of the existing connecting bridge which will be equipped with travelators or moving walkways to make the walking time to go to Terminal B shorter. In front of this connecting bridge two new stands A12 and A14 for narrowbody aircraft will be created which will offer a walkboarding option, something which is favoured by our customers easyJet, Vueling and Ryanair.
To make this possible, several works have to be done: the foundations of the old terminal have to be removed and new apron area needs to be created. The apron markings for aircraft parking and taxi-lines have to be modified to accommodate the new and bigger aircraft types. A canopy on the eastern edge of the old cargo center needs to be demolished to allow the bigger aircraft to taxi in to the western stands of Terminal B. New aircraft power supplies need to be installed, the security and IT systems of the terminal need to be upgraded to the latest standards, the air-conditioning, lighting, electricity, escalators and other systems need a thorough inspection. Some internal constructions in the terminal need to be removed to make space, and most likely a new food & beverage outlet will be installed. And finally the new connecting bridge will have to be built.
The end result will be a major increase in passenger comfort. Today passengers have to take a bus to go to the aircraft for most flights, which is considered very uncomfortable by most passengers. Tomorrow, passengers will be able to simply walk a short distance to their aircraft and simply get on board. Terminal B will add 10 contact gates, to the existing 5 at terminal A, which means that up to 90% of all flights can be handled at a comfortable contact gate against 35% today. Terminal B will also add 700m² more waiting space which will give a much more relaxed feeling for all passengers.
The planning and preparation of the works have started earlier this year, construction work is scheduled to start in September and the works are scheduled to be completed before the start of the summer holidays 2017.
