When the Northwest Arkansas National Airport Regional Airport Authority voted in September to remove its only movable sidewalk from the terminal, it joined the latest in a growing list of airports that have decided that Passengers would only have to use two feet to get to the gates.

According to the airport, the mover was more of a headache than a help to travelers.

“When it was running, it was constantly breaking down,” said Olivia Tyler, a spokeswoman for the Northwest Arkansas National Airport Regional Airport Authority. “I don’t remember the last time it worked,” she said, adding that the outdated walkway also took up a lot of space.

The plan calls for the walkway to be removed and replaced with terrazzo flooring and more chairs. “We are growing at an incredible pace. We needed more additional seats,” Tyler said.

Removing the sidewalks is part of a larger plan to modernize the airport terminal. Tyler says the airport attracts a considerable number of business travelers, with Walmart, trucking giant JB Hunt and Tyson Foods all headquartered in the area. These travelers need to get through their doors quickly and the moving sidewalk was not doing that.

“I don’t think it will be anything to miss; there’s a lot of real estate that we could use to benefit passengers,” Tyler said.

Airports in Chicago, Las Vegas, Orlando, Dallas and Cincinnati, among others, have removed all or part of their moving walkways in recent years. But the consensus isn’t clear: Other airports — Tampa, Denver and Norfolk, for example — are adding or upgrading them.

The economics of airport conveyor belts

Some experts point to the high maintenance costs associated with moving walkway removal. Harry Reid Las Vegas International Airport spent $2.98 million to remove sidewalks in 2022, citing continued high maintenance costs. Other experts cite safety concerns, while others say moving walkways are bad for airport retailers because they sometimes funnel potential customers into stores.

A group of German economics professors released an in-depth study earlier this year regarding moving airport sidewalks. It has determined that they are not useful for airport commerce. However, sidewalks are useful for speeding up flight connections if they are strategically placed to best distribute and route traffic.

“Bridges are particularly useful if the segments are longer. However, longer sidewalks can pose a barrier to reaching stores, and passengers rarely walk back to a store they have already passed on a sidewalk,” said Nils Boysen, chair of the Faculty of Economics at the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena and one of the authors. of the study. “Therefore, airports decide to improve access to stores, at the expense of user comfort, for economic interests.”

Moving walkways also take up a lot of space, and any square footage in an airport is valuable real estate.

Dan Bubb, an aviation historian and professor based at the University of Las Vegas Honors College and a former airline pilot, says studies that determine the speed of moving sidewalks to get people to their gates do not are true only if the sidewalk is empty and one can walk on the moving sidewalk. sidewalk.

“Otherwise, moving sidewalks slow people down,” Bubb said. Most of the time, the moving walkways are crowded with people, he added, although the belts are useful for people who carry a lot of luggage and need a little rest or who have young children with them.

“They rest, they check their phone; it hinders speed,” Bubb said.

A 5 to 10 mph commute through the terminal

At a facility not far from the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport (CVG), two brothers seek to disrupt and transform the moving walkway market.

John and Matine Yuksel founded Beltways, a company dedicated to bringing a better, faster gateway to market. The Yuksel brothers say current regulatory standards limit single-speed moving walkways to three kilometers per hour, but most airports operate at 1 or 1.2 mph, well below average walking speeds.

“This begs the question of why are they there? » said John Yuksel. “Today’s market is ripe for disruption. »

The Yuksels are perfecting a variable-speed moving walkway that will be able to transport people at speeds up to 5 mph, or even up to 10 mph on longer moving walkways. So if you get stuck behind someone hogging the entire sidewalk as they chase their phone, at least you’ll keep moving quickly. A network of sensors monitors the gateway to check security and speed. The Yuksels say their walkways will debut in 2025.

Beltways founders also say their walkway design overcomes problems dangerous part of the traditional approach – the entrance and exit where the sharp combs can lie in wait, where one must pass over the “teeth” to risk an unwanted encounter.

“Ours are flush,” John Yuksel said, “so there’s no overhang.”

Strollers and wheelchairs – which are generally not allowed on moving walkways, but which people accept anyway – will also have an easier time.

The Yuksels envision their skywalks replacing trams at airports, saying it’s much more cost-effective than an expensive tram and there’s no waiting.

Airport retail sales and sidewalk traffic

Meanwhile, the debate over whether sidewalks hurt or help stores won’t subside.

Denver International Airport has no plans to join other airports in removing its sidewalks. “We are a large airport and know it plays an important role in passenger mobility,” spokeswoman Stacey Stegman said. The airport is currently in the middle of a large transportation upgrade program that will replace many older conveyor belts, she said.

“We currently have 68 conveyor belts. Maintenance is performed by a third party contractor (TK Elevator) who is also the original manufacturer in some, but not all, cases. We also have moving walkways from Otis, Kone and Schindler,” Stegman said..

At the Denver airport, Stegman says his more than 140 vendors don’t suffer from moving sidewalks. “The design of Denver International Airport is such that our moving sidewalks pass where our gates are. The concessions are clustered at the ends of the aisles, so that’s not a problem for us,” she said.

Airports where sidewalk designs extend past concessions aren’t “ideal,” she said, but moving sidewalks are generally not so long that people won’t backtrack to get what they want. “You might lose customers and impulse buying might be affected, but if someone is hungry and has time, they will do the right thing.”

When all else fails in the argument against the current generation of treadmills, there’s a strange accident that gets in its way. “If a shoelace gets stuck in one of these, that’s a big problem,” Bubb said.

Indeed, Delta Airline pilot Kenneth Gow discovered this the hard way. Gow filed a lawsuit earlier this year against moving walk maker TK Elevator Corporation over an incident at Denver International in which his foot became stuck in a moving walk. Both sides are currently debating the incident and depositions were filed this month. The incident was filmedand Gow missed a few weeks of work and sought physical therapy.

“It was a good thing he wore sturdy shoes,” said Brian N. Aleinikoff, Gow’s Denver attorney.

TK Elevator did not respond to a request for comment.

Aleinikoff said that while he doesn’t think moving sidewalks are inherently dangerous, they require regular maintenance, and he said the “teeth” on the end of moving sidewalks can be “pretty sharp.” Gow, Aleinikoff said, has made a full recovery.