We don’t get shiny new things in New Orleans very often. That’s probably why, when we do, my mind immediately goes to other places.
University Medical Center, which opened in 2015 as a replacement for the old Charity Hospital that had been shuttered since Hurricane Katrina, has always reminded me of something out of Texas, both in its modern gloss and its imposing scale.
And the brand-new $1.3 billion terminal at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport? The moment I first crossed Veterans Memorial Boulevard and entered the property along newly paved roads rimmed by freshly planted landscaping, I felt transported to south Florida. The bright, airy terminal itself may have plenty of local touches, from the food to the art to the music, but it too felt like it belonged in a place where the past isn’t always quite so present.
The terminal’s opening glitches, though — from the year and a half of delays due to entirely familiar infrastructure issues, to the reports of occasionally overwhelmed security lines and ride-share pickup areas, to a not-quite-functioning baggage handling system — feel very much like the New Orleans residents know all too well.
Now, a few caveats here. Projects as huge as this one rarely go off without a hitch, here and elsewhere. Many travelers have reported positive experiences, calling their first trip through the new terminal a breeze. And complaints tend to be amplified by social media and news reports, so it’s difficult to quantify how common bad experiences are.
But there have been enough of them, from a planeload of departing passengers arriving at their destination without luggage to long waits for security screening and rides home, to cause widespread stress as the busy holiday season approaches. Anecdotally, pretty much everyone I know who has travel plans is poring over the internet for the latest on conditions on the ground, quizzing friends on Facebook who’ve already taken a trip, and clicking on every airport news story. Plenty of passengers planning to make their first trip over Thanksgiving are wearing their anxiety on their sleeves.
Airport officials are urging patience and saying that they’re working to fix problems. They remind us that the scale of their endeavor is staggering — like “picking up a small city and moving it to a different location,” according to a too-rare update last week from Aviation Director Kevin Dolliole — and that more than 40,000 people a day have passed through the facility so far.
There’s also the challenge of coordinating agencies from different levels of government. The state Department of Transportation and Development is working to ease traffic in and out of the airport until the flyover ramp connecting to Interstate 10 is finally built. The federal Transportation Security Administration is in charge of ramping up passenger screening.
It’s a lot easier for travelers to focus on the big picture, though, if they’re confident they’ll be able to get where they’re trying to go.
Those who do reflect on the airport as a whole, I predict, are likely to be blown away by what they see.
I remember arriving at the old MSY for the first time 25 years ago. My flight landed at the end of the dank, since-demolished D concourse, and the walk to luggage claim took me past empty gate after empty gate. It was a depressing first impression of my future home, and it stuck. Subsequent improvements and the addition of more flights have helped, but the airport has never before felt like something you’d find in all those other, growing, more functional and future-facing locales.
Big projects like this carry high stakes, and the airport, the city of New Orleans and the state of Louisiana now have an opportunity to make a very different impression on a new generation of visitors on locals alike. That is, as long as they can just make sure to get people, and their bags, from Point A to Point B.
