2,100 passengers: Gateway marks busiest day ever

Jim Skevling sat in a food concession area watching passengers jockey for position around baggage carousels at Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport.

"It's just unreal," said the Mesa resident as he waited to reschedule a flight. "I just saw some numbers in the paper about growth of this airport."

About 2,100 passengers moved through a quickly constructed addition to the over-capacity passenger terminal and an expanded parking lot Wednesday in what airport officials called the largest one-day surge of passengers in the airport's 15-year history.

Those numbers are expected to climb through early spring, testing the 460-seat terminal addition and a parking lot with 1,300 spaces, airport spokesman Brian Sexton said.

The terminal annex opened Monday, though its restrooms remained closed through Wednesday while workers repaired a faulty water heater. Passengers were routed to restrooms in the nearby original terminal.

In January, Allegiant Air, Gateway's biggest carrier, will have 52 flights per week, compared to 39 this week to and from 15 destinations. During the same period last year, the airline had 26 flights per week.

While the numbers come as good news to airport officials, they are concerned about accommodating up to 600 passengers waiting at the same time for outgoing flights, Sexton said.

"That will be a true test for this terminal expansion," he said.

The $3 million terminal annex, designed and built within 75 days behind the original terminal that opened just seven years ago, was financed by Allegiant in a loan to the airport authority this year.

As passengers boarded two, 150-seat, MD-80 jets through front and tail doors, Ray Durante, a retired firefighter picked up his bags and headed for one of the planes.

It was Durante's third departure from Gateway to Bellingham, Wash., within eight months and he was amazed at the increase in passenger traffic.

"Of course it's Thanksgiving week, but it's also cheaper here than Sky Harbor and I can get a direct flight to Bellingham that I can't get from there," he said.

Behind, Durante, waiting passengers kept clerks in an Arizona Highways gift shop and snack bar busy as departing passengers walked to surface parking lots in front of the terminal and an overflow lot that filled north of the terminal.

Parking costs $5 per day and valet parking, at twice the cost, was added this week as another option to serve the growing number of passengers, Sexton said.

"I came over to check on parking availability because I was worried that we may not be able to find it," Ann Blick said of her trip to the airport from Surprise. "We're taking a flight to Springfield, Mo., on Christmas Eve."

Allegiant Air passengers board at flight at the Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport earlier this month.