The new support terminal (T4) was inaugurated a short while ago. This new terminal will be handling all the Kuwait Airways flight to help reduce the load from the main airport terminal. According to my source at Kuwait Airways, the new terminal will be active and fully operational from August 8th of next month.
I’ve attached some photos to this post taken by Sarah Alsayegh. I’ll hopefully be getting a tour soon and will take more photos and post more information then.
PS: Supposedly the terminal isn’t this dimly lit, but instead the photographer retouched them to this effect.
Not sure who’d want this but if you’re interested, they’re selling a box of 12 for KD63. I’m trying to get a hold of one to review just out of curiosity but here is the link to the local dealer’s [Website] if you can’t wait.
The local Acura dealer now has an NSX in stock. It’s by far the most interesting car in the Acura lineup but at the asking price, they just have too many great and more exciting competitors *cough* McLaren 570s *cough*.
The dealer is selling the NSX for KD65,000 and it’s just the one displayed above. They’ve only ever imported three to Kuwait, one was sold to someone in Dubai and the other two were sold locally.
Last week I was given a very detailed presentation on the new terminal that’s under construction as well as a site visit to see the current progress. There was a lot of information presented but for this post, I rounded up what I thought was the most interesting. So here we go:
– The terminal is shaped similarly to other airports around the world for the same reason all cars have 4 wheels, it’s a shape that works really well for airports. But like all cars have 4 wheels, there is still a big difference between a Ferrari and a Kia and this applies to airports as well. Although airports can be shaped similarly, that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll all function the same way.
– Eventhough the terminal is huge, you still won’t have to walk much. The distance from the terminal entrance to the center of the terminal is around 150m. The furthest a passenger has to walk once inside is 600m. That’s one of the advantages of the triangular shape of the terminal, less walking distance for the passengers.
– The original plan of the terminal was to open with a capacity of 13 million passengers a year with an ability to expand that up to 25 million if needed. The plans have changed now and the terminal will now be able to handle 25 million passengers from day 1.
– The terminal will have a level of service rating of “A”. Dubai, for example, has a “C”. The level of service is calculated using a variety of things including the distance between passengers in the terminal, facilities, wayfinding etc.. For an airport of this capaciaty, its generally very difficult to get an “A”.
– The terminal has enough gates to handle 21 Airbus A380s (above) but also has the capacity to handle 51 smaller aircraft all at once (below). Thats possible because the majority of the gates can either take one large plane or two smaller ones without having to make any modifications.
– The terminal will have over 5,000 underground parking spots dedicated just for the passengers. Our current airport in comparison has around 1,500 that is also shared with the airport employees.
– Nothing is off the shelf, everything is being custom designed and made for the terminal. There are some things that have never been done before even for Foster + Partners, so its a learning experience for everyone involved in the project.
– Landside is airport lingo for everything before immigration and security, airside is what they call the area after. There will be no mall located in the landside part of the terminal but the airside will have a retail space larger than Trafalgar Square (pictured above).
– There will be 44 immigration desks and 26 security screening machines just for economy travelers. Premium passengers will have their own immigration and security checks in a different area.
– The footing of the building (the foundation base) is 5m deep. I had no idea if this was a lot or not but I was told by architects and engineers that this is crazy deep, usually the footing is around 1m max. The reason for this is the footing has to support all the arches which support the whole roof and structure of the terminal.
– Speaking of arches, there are 800+ arches being used in the building.
– The airport will have a floor for arrivals and another for departures so the two don’t mix. The departure dropoff and the arrival pickup area outside the airport are 500 meters long each and composed of 4 lanes. So they both have 2KM each of temporary parking.
– The rendering above of the expansion of T2 where the terminal is mirrored is just to show that there is room to expand but the final design of the expansion terminal might look completely different.
– Nobody knows what DGCA will do with the current airport once T2 is up and running.
– The terminal is currently 1% behind schedule but the contractor has a catch-up plan in place.
– Contractually the airport is expected to be completed by September 2022. It might finish earlier but September 2022 is whats in the contract. Once the airport is completed it will be handed over to DGCA and it could then take up to a year for the airport to open and function.
I took random pictures at the site as well as screenshots from the powerpoint presentation. If you’d like to see them then click [Here]
Below is a video presentation I found of the airport as well that features a lot of animated renderings.
If anyone has any questions, let me know in the comments below.
Last night I was showing my friend the wine app Vivino (its creepy good btw) when I noticed they had a list of best wines trending in Kuwait right now. The app is super useful when it comes to buying wines since you just take a picture of the bottle label and the app then pulls up information on the wine including ratings, reviews and price. You can even take a picture of a wine list and it will get you the ratings for every wine on the list.
I’m guessing their top chart is based on what people in Kuwait have been scanning and damn we’ve been buying some expensive wines here. If a bottle of wine costs $2,000 abroad, how much does it cost in Kuwait? I’m so curious.
If you want to check out the top 10 wines in Kuwait right now, click on the link below.
Looks like I was lucky last week to fly out to Beirut and back with Jazeera. According to my readers and Jazeera Airways themselves, a lot of their flights got canceled last week due to a number of circumstances.
Originally I had heard it was because IATA cracked down on Jazeera after finding out they were flying their planes without proper servicing as well as flying their crew for longer hours than allowed. But, Jazeera Airways yesterday issued a statement denying that and clarified what actually happened. According to them, it was a combination of bad weather, a technical issue with one of their planes and the combination of both problems taking place at the same time that caused a crew shortage as well.
Everything is back to normal now so if you have a flight booked with them you shouldn’t freak out. For more information, you can check out the Jazeera Airways statement [Here]
There is an instagram account that sells VHS and Betamax players here in Kuwait but he’s selling the Betamax ones for around KD50. I just have this one cassette I want to see whats on it so I really don’t want to buy a whole player just to do that. So if any reader by odd chance has a Betamax player, please let me know!
Yesterday I got a very detailed presentation on the new airport terminal that’s being constructed along with a site visit (you can check my story on instagram @mark248am). There is a lot of information I need to figure out how to condense into a post, but for now, I wanted to share the slide above.
If you’re wondering how large the new terminal will be, the picture above is a comparison of T2 next to The Avenues.
Back in the 80s the British School of Kuwait used to be called Sunshine School. It started off as a nursery before eventually turning into a middle school. My class I believe was the second class to graduate from the school (Junior 4), but it was also the last class since the 1990 invasion happened and the school ended up closing down. Once the war was over it reopened again as BSK.
This past weekend while in Lebanon I found a bunch of photos, two of which I’m sharing here. The first one on top I believe was taken at Sunshine School when it was still a nursery, based on my age in that picture I’d say around 1980-1981.
The photo above was taken at their second campus. In total, Sunshine School had three campuses, the third one is still around but I think the first two were demolished ages ago.
If you’re in any of the photos by some weird chance let me know. I have another photo I scanned this weekend in which I found three current friends of mine in not knowing they were in my class back then.
I had heard of the store Arts & Craft awhile back but never passed by it until just last week. A friend of mine was looking for a linen canvas roll and after searching all the art shops in Dasman Complex to no avail, we decided to pass by Arts & Craft to see if they had it. They did… along with a ton of other stuff.
Arts & Craft is a huge two story shop carrying everything you could think of related to arts and crafts. There are of course a lot of places that sell arts and craft supplies in Kuwait for example, Dasman Complex has a bunch of stores, Jarir has a pretty decent section and then stationary shops like Mogahwi also sell arts and crafts supplies. But, what makes the store Arts & Craft so unique is the sheer amount of variety all in one place.
If you’re looking for any kind of art supplies related to painting, drawing, printmaking, calligraphy, various crafts and more, then they should be your go-to place. Their store is located in Shuwaikh on Canada Dry Street [Google Maps] but, they also have an online store you can check out at artsandcrafts-kw.com
This past weekend I got to fly out of the new Jazeera Airways Terminal (T5) and I’m not sure what to make of it. It’s a brand new terminal and our current main terminal is a horrible mess so you would think flying out of this brand new terminal would be a far better experience, but, it really wasn’t that much better.
Parking & Check-in
Firstly, I used the Jazeera Airways Park & Fly service to check in. It’s a service they have where you park your car in their parking lot located away from the terminal, you then check in at the parking lot and take their shuttle back to the main airport. The reason I did that is the service costs KD2.5 a day while parking at the Jazeera Airways parking lot costs KD6 a day, so its a considerable amount of savings. I’m glad I checked in from their remote location since when I arrived to the main terminal, I noticed the check-in area was pretty packed, and they didn’t have their self-check-in machines installed yet either.
Passport Control & Security Check
Passport control wasn’t too bad, there weren’t a lot of people and so I didn’t spend too much time in line. The area did look a bit messy though, I don’t understand why the airport, both this one and the old one can’t get belt barriers set up in straight lines. Anyway the issues started right after passport control beginning with the security check. Between passport control and the security check there really isn’t enough space to set up a proper queueing system so we were standing a bit disorganized. The security machines were also pretty small without any prep space before it. By prep space, I mean an area before the machine to put your bag and start unpacking the laptop or removing your belt, watches etc. Also they didn’t have any bins to dispose of liquids in before the machine, you had to put your liquids in the machine and then dispose of them on the other side. Finally, not sure if its the same now in the main terminal, but the last time I flew out from the main terminal they were using the private security firm G4S for security control. At the Jazeera Terminal the Port Authority is in charge and I’m not exaggerating here, it looked like they were on their first day of the job. They were completely disorganized and looked like amateurs with very little confidence or experience to manage the security check. I’m 99% sure this must have been their first day in charge of security because I can’t imagine another reason why they were so all over the place.
The Terminal
Once I was done with the security check I decided to walk around and explore the terminal but there really wasn’t anything to explore. The duty-free section hadn’t been set up yet and there were no restaurants and very little seating. The terminal still looks unfinished, it was basically in the same state I had seen it in before they had opened. Thankfully, the Jazeera terminal is connected to the old main terminal so I just headed to the lounge there to kill some time and then passed by the newly opened Pick to grab a bite. When it was close to boarding time, I decided to head to my gate back in the Jazeera terminal to wait there, except it turns out there isn’t enough seating at the gate so you have to queue outside the gate until they’re ready to put you on the bus. Once you get into the gate you need to pass through another security check and like the first security check, it was a disorganized mess. This security check also lacked bins to dispose of liquids so people were just placing them on the floor around the security machine.
The Plane
Not related to the airport but still worth mentioning. Our plane was the brand new A320neo which they had just received like a week or so ago. It was very comfortable and not that noisy (engine sound). The thing I found odd was that the interior of the plane was a dark maroon color, both the carpets and the seats. It felt like I was on a Qatar Airways flight and not a Jazeera Airways one. Aren’t the interiors meant to be blue? I thought they were because of their press release photo (pictured above) so I found that odd. I kinda feel like this plane was possibly meant for Qatar Airways but was then taken by Jazeera? Can’t imagine why else it would be in this color. No screens, USB ports or any seat amenities of course, but that was ok with me since I carry everything I need with me anyway. I just wish they had screens somewhere with the live map so we knew how far into the trip we were but that’s the only issue I had with the plane.
Arrival
Coming back into Kuwait was a far better experience. Passport control went pretty smooth and so did the carry-on security check right after. After the security check is the baggage conveyor belts area which felt small. Our baggage did take forever to come out but I’m not sure Jazeera have any control over that. The airport is small so the distance from passport control to baggage pick up to airport exit is very short so if you’re only with your carry on, then you could be out pretty quickly from the terminal. Once I was out there were no signs telling me where to go for the shuttle bus back to their Park & Fly area, I also couldn’t find a Jazeera Airways employee to ask so I asked a security guy who told me to go to the side of the building. The shuttle was just arriving so I didn’t end up waiting long and ended up back at my car fairly quickly.
In Conclusion?
If you fly with Jazeera Airways right now you need to manage your expectations and treat their new terminal like it’s still in beta testing with a lot of bugs that need to be sorted out. Is it better than the main terminal? I mean I guess but marginally. Only the passport control area is an improvement but that’s about it. The conveyor belt area was a bit tight, there are two belts and the space around them is smaller than the number of people per flight so it gets crowded very quickly. If two planes land at the same time I can imagine it looking like a total mess but I think it would still be better off than the main terminal, but just slightly. The worst aspects of the new terminal are the unorganized and inexperienced security personnel along with the horrible gates that can’t hold passengers (at least Gate B3). I imagine things will get better but for now, don’t expect too much.
Every time I visit my parent’s house in Lebanon, I go through some of their old photos to see if I could find anything interesting to share. This trip I found the photo above, it’s a photo of my parents with some of their friends having dinner at Riccardo in the Sheraton Hotel sometime back in the 70s.
