The ballot initiative is a divisive issue among Kansas City voters. Justus says the airport is not currently in full compliance with TSA regulations, but it is grandfathered in, so it can keep running. (Courtesy Kansas City Aviation Department) “And so, we had to then build a wall between the ticketing and boarding areas, which really has created a lot of our problems.” An archival image of the Kansas City International Airport. “This airport became out of date from security measures because it was decided immediately by the FAA that we needed to separate our ticketing and our boarding areas,” she says. government to pass new security measures for air travel. Justus says almost immediately after the airport opened in 1972, a hijacking prompted the U.S. Perhaps the strangest thing about KCI is the thick glass wall that rises about three-quarters of the way up the ceiling and separates the check-in area from the secured gates. “The space in the waiting area, next to the gates, is only 36 feet wide, and so when you have the planes coming and going it’s incredibly crowded and it creates very, I think, congested, uncomfortable departure,” she says. Justus says while the horseshoes were designed to make it easier for travelers to get to their gates, the configuration doesn’t allow for traditional security checkpoints. “We have significant infrastructure issues that need to be addressed, but the bottom line is that the configuration is not meeting modern air travel.” A rendering of the proposed single-terminal Kansas City International Airport. “This airport has done a very good job for 45 years, but it is past its useful life,” says Jolie Justus, a city council member and head of the airport committee. The plan is to tear down the old horseshoes and replace them with a single, billion-dollar terminal. The airport committee is asking voters to decide on a ballot referendum this November that would approve a major airport upgrade. KCI’s three terminals are shaped like horseshoes, which were meant to allow flyers to seamlessly walk through the front doors to their gate.īut the terminals were built more than 40 years ago, and many believe the decades have not been kind. There are few airports like it in the country. When it was built, Kansas City International Airport was the picture of convenience.
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