Properties 2017 vol 4 Houston Airports

HOUSTON’S

AIRPORTS Highlight Hometown Pride By: Edward Nawotka

I

t’s a Sunday morning in October at IAH — the code which stands as shorthand for Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport — and there’s no mistaking where you are.

A TV over the bar at Cadillac Mexican Kitchen is tuned into morning services at Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church; weekend travelers stroll by in bright orange and blue and red and white jerseys, showing their allegiance to the Astros and the Texans; turn a corner and you can order up a serving of The Breakfast Klub’s famous chicken and waffles, a favorite of H-town heroine Beyoncé and her husband Jay-Z. It’s Houston, baby, and there’s no mistaking it for anywhere else.

This hometown hit parade is the consequence of an effort by the Houston Airport System to provide an authentic Houston experience for those passing through the city, even if it is just for a few hours, even if they never leave the airport.

Last year a total of 41.6 million people flew through IAH and a further 12.9 million flew through Hobby Airport.

But the millions of dollars that have been spent to upgrade and improve facilities ultimately dwarf those numbers, as dramatic as they are. At Hobby, for example, some $250 million has been spent to expand capacity to accommodate international flights. Beginning in 2015, this included spending $156 million to expand the terminal by 280,000 square feet, and a further $55 million was implemented to add a new one million-square-foot parking facility — an addition most car-dependent Houstonians will surely appreciate.

At Intercontinental, United spent $277 million to expand

Terminal C, adding more than 100,000 square feet and bringing it to a total of 265,000 square feet. The airport is also building a new Terminal D, which will be called the Mickey Leland International Terminal, and will cost some $1.5 billion.

Overall, the money spent on the airports will amount to more than $4 billion over the next decade.

“Houston’s two airports are an economic engine for the city,” Bill Begley, Public Information Officer for the Houston Airport System said. “The idea was to constantly improve the experience of being at the airport, whether that is making [it] more comfortable and lavish, like Terminal C at IAH or more convenient to park, like at Hobby.”

Begley is keen to point to less obvious or dramatic improvements, such as the fast and free WiFi now available at the airports or the comprehensive and sleek Fly2Houston.com website. These types of improvements may not be as flashy as the opening of a Hard Rock Cafe at IAH earlier this year, only the second one at an airport in the U.S., but they are essential to keeping passengers happy and the business humming.

HOUSTON’S

two airports are an economic engine for the city.

And humming it is. Our city has long been the U.S. gateway to Latin America and still has more flights to Mexico than any city stateside.

IAH recently added a new flight to Sydney, Australia and is looking to add daily flights to Havana, Cuba in addition to its current weekly offering.

Hobby Airport is Houston’s link to the continental United States, with Southwest, JetBlue and other airlines connecting us to even the smallest hubs.

In all, the series of improvements is getting noticed by those who matter; Bush Airport was ranked No. 3 among the most improved airports in the world and the No. 9 airport in the world for dining according to an annual survey conducted

by Skytrax, which is recognized as a leading global air transport rating organization. Hobby too has won accolades and is ranked as a “Four Star Airport” by Skytrax, one of only three in the United States.

But let’s be honest, what really matters to passengers is easy parking, quick security lines, and some tasty food, cold drinks

and interesting places to shop and pass the time. Fortunately, for those finding IAH or HOU on their boarding card, they will have no shortage of attractive, interesting and authentic options — be it swirling a rare Bordeaux at Tony’s Wine Cellar & Bistro; choosing ingredients for a hand-tossed pie from Pink’s Pizza; browsing the small batch soy candles and hand-made leather goods from Manready Mercantile; or biting into a juicy burger from Hubcap Grill (voted the fourth best sit-down airport dining experience in the country by USA Today). And if you just want to walk and stretch your legs, you can enjoy one of the largest collections of

public art in Texas or pass the time doing what hundreds of millions of passengers have done before you: stare out the picture windows trying to guess where those big jumbo jets launching into the air will land.

“Overall, there have been more than 120 new restaurants, stores and experiences that have opened at Houston’s airports in the last year,” Begley said. “There’s a real authentic Houston experience waiting for anyone traveling through, and we hope they will take a little bit of that good feeling with them wherever they go.”