"Orlando airport's luggage conveyor off track"

Thursday, May 17, 2007

Airport's luggage conveyor off track
The project's $30M first phase is about 6 months behind schedule.
By Beth Kassab
The Orlando (FL) Sentinel


Passengers at Orlando International Airport will have to wait a little
longer to relive the pre- 9-11 ease of leaving checked luggage behind the
ticket counter with the airline agent, rather than the hassle of hauling it
to a crowded machine to be screened for explosives.

The project's first phase -- a portion of the planned nine miles of
behind-the-scenes baggage conveyor belts combined with an
explosive-detection system -- is running about six months behind schedule,
meaning it won't be ready for the airport's summer travel crush.

"It's disappointing," said Jeffry Fuqua, chairman of the Greater Orlando
Aviation Authority, though he emphasized that the first phase will serve
only about 30 percent of the airport, anyway.

Airport officials said Wednesday the first phase, which is costing more than
$30 million and serves American, Continental and Northwest airlines among
others, will be complete in September, having missed its April target.

Also on Wednesday, the aviation authority awarded a $79.5 million contract
to PCL Construction Services Inc. to build the project's third and largest
phase, which will serve Delta Air Lines, AirTran Airways, JetBlue Airways
and Virgin Atlantic, among others.

PCL Construction beat out Hensel Phelps Construction Co., which is building
the first two phases of the project but whose third-phase bid was nearly $20
million higher than PCL's.

The lower bid raised questions from some board members, who wondered whether
PCL would be able to stick to its stated price.

"This kind of concerns me," authority member Robert Theisen said. "I want to
make sure there's not going to be a change-order parade."

The project is expected to cost more than $132 million altogether and to go
a long way toward both streamlining security screening of checked luggage
and freeing up passenger space near the airlines' ticket counters.

As each phase is completed, the airport's SUV-size bomb-detection machines
can be removed from the ticket-counter areas, and passengers will no longer
be required to pile their checked luggage near the machines on their way to
the boarding gates. The added space will allow the airport to expand its
ticket counters and give passengers more room while checking in.The
project's second phase is scheduled to be finished just three months after
the first -- that is, by the end of the year. The third phase isn't
scheduled to be ready until February 2010.

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