SFO Delays Opening of New Terminal,computer snafus

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SFO Delays Opening of New Terminal Construction backups, computer snafus blamed

Marshall Wilson, Patrick Hoge, Chronicle Staff Writers Saturday, August 12, 2000

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SFO -- Construction delays and computer glitches prompted San Francisco International Airport officials yesterday to postpone opening the new $850 million international terminal for at least six weeks.

Troubles with or delays in installing everything from automated baggage-handling systems to fire alarms and telephones persuaded officials to delay the long-anticipated grand opening scheduled for September 26, SFO spokesman Ron Wilson said.

HOLIDAY SEASON OPENING

Instead, the international terminal -- showcase of the airport's five- year, $2.4 billion expansion -- will not open to full-scale service until the busy holiday travel season. Wilson said it could take anywhere from early November to mid-December before the airport allows full use of the 1.8 million-square-foot glass-and-steel building.

SFO officials hope to avoid the embarrassments that ensued when other airports opened to chaos amid bungled baggage handling or computer crashes.

``Anytime you have a facility this large, you're going to end up with glitches, and we don't want those glitches to have an adverse impact on the passengers,'' Wilson said.

``You can imagine how we would be criticized severely if we did open the building, and it didn't work,'' he said.

A limited number of charter flights will use the new terminal starting August 30 to test electronic and manual systems. Charters from Sky Service and Allegro Airlines will bring passengers from Honolulu and Mexico through the new terminal, Wilson said.

Other international passengers must continue to use the old international terminal, which opened in 1954.

DETAILED TESTING NEEDED

SFO Director John Martin said, ``We can afford this extra time to complete detailed testing.''

Mike McCarron, assistant deputy airport director, blamed the setback on lagging work by two contractors, HSQ Technology and Sasco Electric. The companies are installing about $46 million worth of fire- alarm and computer-networking systems.

Officials with both companies said their work had been thrown off schedule because the base construction of the building -- which was supervised by contracting giant Tutor-Saliba -- was completed late.

Sasco project manager Hank Hansen, however, said he still expected to be done on time, and he had not been told that the opening was delayed.

``As far as us being a cause, I'm not buying it,'' Hansen said. ``I think somebody's feeding you bad information.''

Richard Fouts, a field project manager for HSQ Technology, acknowledged that his firm was behind schedule.

DELAYS EXPLAINED

``We are still installing the systems, and the work has been very difficult,'' Fouts said. ``The base building construction took a lot longer than we expected.''

McCarron said Tutor-Saliba's work was delayed due largely to the El Nino rains of early 1998.

But an official at Tutor-Saliba's headquarters in Sylmar, who refused to give his name, responded angrily to any suggestion that his company's work was tardy. That was simply ``wrong,'' he said.

``(SFO) made a lot of changes,'' the Tutor-Saliba official said.

McCarron said HSQ Technology's $12.5 million contract is to install fire alarm, smoke evacuation devices and a public address system.

Sasco has a $33.7 million contract to install fiber-optic cables and electrical wiring for a centralized computer system that will be shared by all of the airlines using the terminal. The company was also hired to install climate-control and energy-management equipment and flight- information displays.

Wilson said airport officials want to make sure that the systems don't do things like send bags to the wrong airplanes -- every passenger's nightmare.

OTHER AIRPORTS' CHAOS

The chaos that ensued when Denver opened a new airport five years ago is still fresh in the memory of SFO officials, who don't want to see similar problems on their turf. At Denver, a $218 million automated baggage system failed badly, leaving the airport -- and local officials -- the butt of jokes.

Hong Kong's $20 billion airport opened two years ago with a variety of blunders. Flights left without luggage as faulty computers led to mass confusion. When a new airport opened in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in 1998, misplaced cargo was left baking on the tarmac while the computerized ticketing system broke down.

``We don't want another Hong Kong, another Kuala Lumpur or another Denver baggage system. You all remember that,'' said Frank Kent, managing director for Northern California operations at United Airlines, SFO's largest carrier.

``We would all be better served to wait until every system was 100 percent efficient and effective,'' said Kent, pointing out that other airlines as well as United agree with Martin's decision.

The new terminal was designed to handle the expected growth in international travel. The number of international passengers is expected to reach 12 million by 2006, up from nearly 7 million in 1998.

When it does open, the new terminal will be the largest international terminal in the United States, with 24 gates and twice the number of ticket counters as the current international terminal. The counters and gates will be shared among airlines, which means a greater reliance on computers to connect all the airlines along with the airport, Wilson said.

The delay will not raise the price of the project, according to Wilson said. It will, however, cost some of the restaurateurs and other tenants leasing a share of the terminal's 147,000 square feet of retail space potential revenue as they wait for passengers to arrive.

The tenants could not be reached for comment yesterday, but Wilson said they would probably ``welcome'' the delay as it would give them more time to prepare.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2000/08/12/MN100022.DTL

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), August 12, 2000


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