Ingram's October 2023

BETWEEN THE LINES

Pointed Perspectives & Penetrating Punditry | by Jack Cashill

The New KCI: A Review

Sure, it has its selling points as Kansas City’s front door to the world. But not everyone believes this was a slam-dunk improvement. “For years, the naysayers put up a big fight against a new airport terminal in Kansas City, Missouri,” TPG’s Zach Griff gushes in his guide to the new KCI. “They liked the conve nience of the original facility, which offered the ability to park and practically walk onto the plane.” Yeah, Zach, they kind of did like that convenience. Why wouldn’t they? “The opposition was strong,” Zach continues, “but Justin Meyer, the city’s deputy director of aviation, kept his head held high.” Not to bring Justin low, but he needs to know that when Kansas City travelers arrive at KCI, their first instinct is to gripe. The opposition has not abated.

In mid-October, I arrived in the sparkling new KCI on a direct flight from Tampa at gate 68, the farthest gate from the front door. As I rounded the corner into the long straightaway, I noticed that the moving walkway was out of service. Curiously, the previous time I flew into KCI, the walkway was also out of service. Was this a bug, I asked myself, or an art installation I couldn’t quite understand? On both of my last two arrivals, I fell in with a cluster of people, bonding in our self-pity. The de- funct walkway having set us off, we bitched all way to the curb. Napol- eon’s troops, I suspect, griped less in their long slog back from Moscow

Unlike visitors, we see the airport through taxpayers’ eyes. We knew what we had. To the degree possible, we wanted to preserve that special sauce at some reasonable cost. But what “we” wanted and what “they” wanted never meshed. Zach tells us we will be “mesmerized by the 28 unique art installations,” but “bamboozled,” I think, is a little closer to the mark. The fact that KCI represents the “largest-ever public art program in Kansas City’s history” just twists the knife. I can imagine many better ways to spend that $15 million or so taxpayer dollars. Where to Begin?

in the snow. Yes, we were spoiled. The old KCI had spoiled us. “The new Kansas City ter- minal was also designed with accessibility in mind,” Zach tells us. “If you’re drop- ped off at the departures level, you won’t need to

The sad disconnect is that the designers did not build the new airport for people who live here. They built it for people who don’t.

take any stairs or elevators to get to your gate. There’s just one small sloping ramp that leads to each con- course, but it’s a very mild grade.” A mild grade maybe, but it’s a very long walk. A friend visiting Kansas City last month found herself in a pickle. With a broken foot, the walk from her gate to the curb exhausted her. On the trip out, she felt obliged to request a wheelchair. It was em barrassing. She had never done that before. She was not alone. Others have made the same decision. On my last trip, a veritable convoy of wheel chairs descended on my gate. Watching these people board before me, I found myself thinking, “Hmmm … maybe,

For starters, maybe with a couple of extra TSA booths. My last two flights left KCI early in the morning, one at 6, one at 7. What they had in common was the length of the queue. Each lasted a full half-hour. In the future, I will always have to slice that much time out of my sleep. In the old KCI, “each small subset of gates had its own security checkpoint,” Zach tells us, “which often experienced bottlenecks.” Those were some tiny bottles. I don’t recall ever waiting in line more than five or 10 minutes, and I fly a lot. To distract us from the meandering queue and frequent time checks, we are invited to look up at Nick Cave’s million dollar art installation, “The Air Up There”—in Zach’s words, “a plethora of colorful metal spinners that welcome you into the new space.” Color me a Philistine, Zach, but when I’m hustling to catch a flight, I wouldn’t care if the Mona Lisa were spinning from the roof.

Jack Cashill Ingram’s Senior Editor P | 816.842.9994 E | Editorial @ Ingrams.com

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Kansas City’s Business Media

October 2023