The Pier F experience

January 13, 2006 - Bernard and I woke up at the crack of dawn this morning (yes, on a cold January Saturday morning!) to participate in the Toronto Pearson Airport Terminal 1 passenger trial. The purpose of the trial is to test the operations of the new international wing (Pier F) of the terminal, which is scheduled to open on January 30, 2007 (following the closure of T2). Pier F will consolidate all Air Canada domestic, trans-border and international flights.

The architectural highlight of the new Pier is the Hammerhead, the area at the end of the pier that resembles the head of a hammer (hence the name). The Hammerhead is where AC and its alliance airlines will depart for international destinations. Travellers will no longer have to take a 10 minute bus ride to the infield terminal.

So when we arrived at the terminal, we were greeted by several GTAA officials who promptly asked us which airline we would like to fly on today (B picked Lufthansa). Before you know it, we were passengers Ali Changi and Chris Cetindis on LH477 to Munich. We were given a script and we were told to play the role of the passengers - from check in to boarding.

So we proceeded to the huge check-in hall, where real airline officials were there to check us in. We were even given fake luggage to make our experience more authentic. We were issued real boarding passes, with assigned seats, a specific gate number, and boarding time. See pictures of us with our boarding passes =)

We then went through security - where again, they took it pretty seriously (though I was allowed to keep my water bottle) - and into Pier F. Pier F is a long corridor that connects the main terminal with the hammerhead. To facilitate travellers, two moving walkways were built, including one that will "travel at speeds upwards of 2 metres/second" (apparently the world's longest and fastest moving walkway).

Upon arriving at the Hammerhead, we saw the huge "Tilted Spheres" sculpture, which passengers will have to walk through to get to their gates (see picture below). The sculpture was ok - I would have picked a different material i think (perhaps aluminum or even glass). B was also quick to point out that the sculpture resembles a vagina - perhaps comparing travelling to rebirth (or am I thinking too much here?). Also in the hammerhead are the 17 retail concessions - including a Virgin music store (do we have that even in downtown?).

We proceeded to Gate 173, which is actually one of the 2 gates in T1 that can handle the new double-decker A380 planes. The passenger boarding bridge can handle both the upper level and the lower level of the plane. Again, the airline officials made the whole experience extremely real by announcing boarding priorities and collecting our boarding passes. And before you know it, we were walking down the gate to our plane to Munich! (except of course, there was no plane, and we were told to make a detour and make our way back to the terminal).

The whole experience took about 3 hours but it was a lot of fun - perhaps because both B and I are into planes, airports, architecture, etc! It was also really cool how they took the trial very seriously and made our experience feel so "real". At one point, we weren't sure if the pilots, the flight attendants and airline officials that we kept seeing are real (as in that's really their job), or if they are part of the trial.

The terminal itself is stunning - large bright windows along with a high ceiling create a sense of openness that just wasn't there in the old T1 and T2. The Pier is also filled with various art work (in addition to Tilted Spheres), including various bronze statues and wall drawings. All in all, Pier F is just as impressive (if not more so), than the existing Pier E of T1.

B and I also rode the new airport monorail - but I think I will blog about that later, since that was a cool experience in itself.

So overall, it was a lot of fun and I'm glad we did it - even though we both had to wake up pretty early to get there by 9 a.m. We weren't sure how we had helped, but we did have a lot of fun checking out the building and pretending to be passengers to Germany (does that mean Lufthansa will start flying to Munich too?)! Apparently this will be the last trial at the airport until the next expansion (which probably won't be for another 10 years), so we were glad to be part of Toronto's aviation/airport history.

B and I took lots of pics and will post them online soon!