[Quixote]

Aside from the people mover, CONRAC, and off-site facilities, everything so far at LAX has been an incremental improvement. Luckily for us, the people mover will be operational by this time next year, reducing some of the chaos that is the CTA.

I know LAX is an "origin and destination" airport, but it's also one of the world's busiest and the gateway to the Pacific Rim. An air-side underground people mover didn't make sense for just linking TBIT with the MSC, but I think it does for the entire airport. It's ridiculous that connecting passengers have to be bussed to another terminal.

Also, I really, really hoping against hope that we actually get a "world-class" design for Terminals 9 and 0. The new Terminal 3 is a joke and looks dated. This is why I'm not bothered that the Woods Begot-designed MSC South concourse is a different design. The architecture is much more sophisticated than TBIT and MSC North, and as such, raises the bar for future built-from-scratch terminals — hopefully.

The city and LAWA officials need to devise a long-term master plan that involves overhauling the entire airport over the next 25 years. They should consider making everything south of Arbor Vitae airport property, eliminating city blocks, consolidating hotels in one area farther north. It'd be great if they could also cap Sepulveda separating Terminal 8 and the site of Terminal 9, resulting in a huge 25-30-gate terminal.

In any scenario, Terminal 9 means more gates for United and opens the door for demolishing Terminal 8, then Terminal 7. Terminal 9 will have 12-18 gates (12 wide-body, 18 narrow-body, or a combo). United currently has 21 gates between Terminal 7 (13) and Terminal (8).