Boarding planes could have been very different

0:00 If you're boarding a big aircraft,

0:01 the kind of large Boeing or Airbus that goes across the Atlantic,

0:04 you'll probably get on and off the plane using a jetbridge.

0:07 That's the movable, extendable corridor that connects the terminal to the plane.

0:11 But sometimes, the plane will have to park at what's called a "remote stand",

0:15 just a spot that's assigned in the middle of the tarmac.

0:18 And so, as the rain piles down,

0:20 some cold and tired airport staff will roll a set of stairs up,

0:23 and you end up riding a slow and crowded airport bus instead.

0:27 I guess you do get to skip the long walk through the terminal,

0:29 and it's great if you're the sort of aviation

0:31 geek who likes looking behind the scenes at an airport...

0:33 but it's not ideal if you have a connection to make.

0:36 It could have been very different.

0:39 The last time I flew into Montreal, here in Canada,

0:42 the aircraft door opened and on the other side

0:44 was what looked like a strange bus on stilts.

0:47 There were three of them.

0:48 Passenger transport vehicles, PTVs, one connected to each door of the plane.

0:53 And I figured I had a new video idea.

0:57 We have eight PTVs that are in use right now at Montreal Trudeau Airport.

1:02 Of course, we always strive to do gating directly,

1:06 but during summer season or some peak season during winter time,

1:10 we have no choice but to use remote parking.

1:12 During our peak season on a regular day,

1:15 we receive a bit more than 500 flights here at Montreal Trudeau.

1:19 And of those 500 flights,

1:21 about 10 to 15 of them will be remotely gated with a PTV.

1:25 The idea came from legendary architect Eero Saarinen,

1:28 as part of his plan for Washington Dulles Airport, which still also uses them.

1:32 The original name was "mobile lounge".

1:34 They were promoted in a short film produced by his friends,

1:37 equally legendary designers Charles and Ray Eames.

1:40 And that film shows exactly the sort of late-50s

1:44 luxury techno-optimism that wouldn't survive the next few decades.

1:47 Saarinen's original plan was that airport terminals

1:49 would work much like they do now,

1:51 but smaller, with boarding doors close together.

1:55 When it was time to board, a mobile lounge would dock to the terminal,

1:58 everyone would get on board,

1:59 and they'd be taken out to the remote stand in comfort.

2:02 Less space needed, less walking,

2:04 less noise near the terminal, easier for everyone.

2:08 And it worked.

2:09 There are photos of mobile lounges lined up outside

2:12 brand new shiny terminals that were designed for them.

2:15 When passengers see them arriving,

2:16 they know that they're not going to have to go

2:19 outside in the rain and the snow with their luggage.

2:21 For people with reduced mobility, it's more efficient.

2:24 For parents, and all the stuff

2:26 that goes with traveling with children, it's easier.

2:28 A PTV can welcome between 100 and 120 passengers per trip,

2:33 while a regular bus is more in the mid 70s, 75 passengers.

2:40 Montreal's PTVs here are a more modern variant called the Plane-Mate.

2:43 The original lounges were smaller than

2:45 this, and instead of lifting up on stilts,

2:47 they extended a boarding ramp that went out at an incline,

2:50 because the planes they were connecting to were smaller too.

2:53 Back then, a fully loaded jet might have 100 passengers.

2:56 The largest modern planes have four or five times that.

2:59 Airport terminals were getting bigger not just to accommodate planes,

3:03 but also sheer numbers of people.

3:05 Now, these newer versions are bigger, and to dock with the plane,

3:08 they lift themselves up with a "screw drive".

3:11 Those big lumps on the top?

3:12 They're to cover up the poles that the entire cabin is lifting itself along.

3:17 We do the maintenance and operations of the PTVs.

3:21 We acquired the manufacturing rights in the year 2000,

3:25 so we have all the engineering drawings and everything.

3:27 I would say now, we got it down to probably less than 20% that is custom.

3:33 The rest is off the shelf parts that we can get.

3:36 We have built new ones,

3:38 and right now we are looking at retrofitting them to electrical.

3:42 Our mechanics every day do a walk-around.

3:46 We guarantee 99.8% efficiency to the airport.

3:51 So why didn't these end up being used around the world?

3:54 Eero Saarinen blamed the cost, and that was certainly a factor.

3:58 Planes getting bigger was another.

3:59 And the former head of the Washington Airports Authority

4:03 said that passengers don't like them because we want autonomy.

4:06 We want to get off the damn plane and walk for a bit under our own power.

4:11 But if you ask me, I think the main reason is that in 1958,

4:15 the same year that animated film was made,

4:17 the first modern jet bridge was also installed.

4:20 There was one victory for that luxury techno-optimism, though.

4:23 The end of that film shows mobile lounges at a surely-soon-to-arrive spaceport.

4:28 And while, sadly, no one's boarding a Pan Am flight to the Moon any time soon,

4:31 NASA did buy a couple of Plane-Mates for astronaut transport.

4:36 There's nothing wrong with mobile lounges.

4:38 They still work well here in Montreal.

4:40 But when airports were expanding and had to choose,

4:43 most of them decided that jetbridges were just a little bit easier and cheaper.

4:50 I'm not allowed to drive this, by the way.

4:51 Like, thank you to everyone from Montreal Airport for letting me sit here,

4:54 and for all the access they've given me, but...

4:57 I'm not allowed to drive this.