Delta Terminal Opens With Proven Technology StrategyDelta Terminal Opens With Proven Technology Strategy

Ten years ago, the opening of the Denver International Airport was delayed by software and mechanical problems that plagued a state-of-the-art automated baggage system. Today, Delta Air Lines opened its new terminal at Boston's Logan International Airport with a different strategy: proven technology.

A Delta executive says it was a priority to deploy only thoroughly tested technologies. "If you're going to spend $400 million on a facility, it should be trouble free," says Rich Cordell, Delta's senior VP of airport customer service. "There really wasn't any reason to do anything different here."

That Delta had to be conservative about the technology behind the terminal isn't a surprise, Forrester Research analyst Henry Harteveldt says. "Delta's not going to be doing much of anything cutting edge in terms of technology. They simply can't afford to," he says. "At this point, I think Delta's lucky just to have a roof over it's head."

Still, the gleaming, $400 million terminal hosts many technological conveniences for customers. Delta partnered with the Massachusetts Port Authority on the facility, which will handle all of Delta's 99 daily flights out of Boston and is the first in the country to be built from the ground up since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The terminal's technologies have been tested at Delta's Atlanta, Cincinnati, and Salt Lake City hubs, as well as its technology test bed at Jacksonville (Fla.) International Airport.

Among the conveniences: 32 check-in kiosks, a dozen automated skycap terminals, and devices that allow passengers who've been rebooked because of service interruptions to scan their old boarding passes and receive new ones.

Delta also extended its Delta Direct initiative to Boston, installing in the terminal eight phones that connect passengers directly with the airline's reservations centers in Tampa, Fla., and Salt Lake City. Reservation agents can handle a variety of passenger booking transactions nearly twice as fast as airport check-in agents can, Cordell says.

Yet some new technologies are on hold. Delta is preparing to roll out gate kiosks that will enable passengers to do things like change seats or purchase in-flight meals at some of its airports, but the Boston terminal won't see that technology until as late as 2007.

The new terminal, however, boasts an advanced security checkpoint. Delta worked closely with the Transportation Security Administration in designing the checkpoint, which moves the explosives-detection screening process from the terminal lobby, where it occurs at most airports today, to the behind-the-scenes screening operation, allowing every bag to be checked for explosive materials. The system lets TSA screeners view images of the luggage, determine the cause of alarms, and route bags either to their flights or for additional screening.

TSA also invested between $10 million and $12 million in equipment for the terminal, including X-ray and explosives-detection machines, and was a proponent of a closed-caption TV system that uses 46 cameras to monitor the checkpoint area.

The terminal was humming along without any sign of a glitch as of midafternoon, Cordell says, when load factors were at 78%.