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TIA tackles suitcase scrums

Over the next two years, it will install bigger bag belts and replace existing ones to relieve crowding.

By STEVE HUETTEL, Times Staff Writer
Published January 10, 2008

Detroit passenger John Burcham of Bloomfield, Mich, pulls a bag off a belt at Tampa International Airport on Wednesday.
	[Kathleen Flynn | Times]

Like a fullback looking for daylight, Tamara Jamieson spies some space between two travelers at the crowded bag belt and plots a move for when her luggage comes by.

"This is a little crazy," says Jamieson, a visitor from Windsor, Ontario, fresh off a packed Northwest Airlines flight Wednesday from Detroit. "I guess you dart in and say, 'Move.'"

Regulars at Tampa International Airport know the drill all too well. When waves of planes touch down during late morning and evening peak periods - or even when one large jet unloads - travelers stack up three-deep waiting to grab their bags.

Help is on the way - if you can wait a couple of years.

The board that oversees Tampa International should get the ball rolling today on a $20-million project to add four bag belts and replace the existing 18 with new, larger models. The plan includes expanding the bag claim floor by 20,000 square feet.

Tampa International added bag belts as the 36-year-old airport grew over the years. Officials replaced them in the mid '80s, but couldn't install longer ones without making the baggage claim area too crowded.

It took four years to relocate rental car counters outside the main terminal so lines of customers wouldn't be competing for space with people picking up their bags, said Louis Miller, the airport's executive director.

Besides passenger growth at Tampa International, airline business strategy and traveler demographics contributed to overcrowding at the bag belts, he said.

Aircraft load factors, the percentage of seats filled, has been climbing steadily into the 80s as airlines have cut their fleets or reined in growth to grow revenue. That means each flight on average carries a couple of dozen more passengers on average than a decade earlier.

Also, Tampa International is attracting a bigger share of leisure travelers, up to 69.3 percent of TIA travelers from 62.3 percent in 2004, a recent survey showed. Vacationers check more luggage than business travelers. The airport handled a record 8.8-million bags last year, up 1.3 percent from 2006.

The Hillsborough County Aviation Authority board is scheduled to vote today on a contractor to design and build the project. Construction should be complete by the end of 2009 or early 2010, Miller said.

It won't be soon enough for Scott Atkins of Sarasota, who waited beside the same bag belt as Jamieson on Wednesday. He called Tampa International "a great airport" but gestured with disdain at the belt. "This," he said, "is like it's in a regional airport."

Steve Huettel can be reached at huettel@sptimes.com or (813) 226-3384.

[Last modified January 9, 2008, 23:08:34]