New terminal at San Jose International Airport

The SF Bay Area has three major airports: San Francisco (SFO), Oakland (OAK), and San Jose (SJC), also known as Dinky Airport. I learned more than 20 years ago that SJC is the one for me. It's the smallest, most efficient, and most convenient to where I live. At that time, SJC consisted of one concourse with about a dozen gates. To board your plane, you walked right out on the tarmac and climbed up stairs. In the 1990s, SJC added another concourse, but the original concourse remains to this day, and you still walk out on the tarmac.

In the late 1990s I used to fly to Seattle from SJC once a month. It was the most convenient commercial flying commute possible. I would get in my car at home about 20 minutes before my flight, drive to the airport in about 10 minutes, park, walk about 100 feet from the parking lot to security and on to my gate.

New Terminal B at SJC. Bulbous, shiny, windowy, futury. (Animated GIF stolen from SJC site).

Yesterday was the beginning of the end for the old terminal. SJC opened the first gates in its shiny new Terminal B. When Terminal B opens fully next year, they're going to tear down the old terminal (now called Terminal C). I usually like the shiny and the new, but I'm not fond of this one. I'll miss the convenience and the quaint retro time-warpy feel of the old place. On the other hand: Sunglass Hut!

Comments

[dmaille]

Great post. We had a similar airport in Albany, NY that was recently upgraded to a new multi-level structure with skyways, etc. While the new building is much nicer, I still miss the old one store concrete bunker.

There is something about walking across the tarmac, and up a flight of stairs into an airliner, that I will always miss. In Albany, they'd even have skycaps hand out umbrellas when it was raining. I miss those days...

[Snodgrass Mugwup Andiron Heatercore Nigel Flange @]

I, too, wax affectionate about BUR, SJC, HPN, and especially ONT (the only airport ever to have been done up as a 1950s mens room, with minute tiles throughout).

But the middle years, when there are too many people and not enough seats and not enough room and not enough sinks -- not so much affection.

I will miss the old terminal at SJC, but I will mostly miss the flights that board at both ends -- can jetways do that?

[Hattie]

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