The Kansas City Star reports (link dead) that the Kansas City International Airport is undergoing its normal 10-year long-range planning. Airport planners want to ditch the airport’s unique 3-C or clover configuration and build a giant terminal that could serve as an airport hub. U.S. Rep for Missouri’s 6th District Sam Graves has come out against the plan. KCI traffic has waxed and waned (link dead) in the last 20 years, bouncing from 6.9 million in 1990 to 11.9 million in 2000.

KCI’s three small terminals allowed people, if they had an e-Ticket, to have a driver drop travellers off mere hundreds of feet from a gate and get those people on a plane immediately. Come 9/11, and the TSA decided to isolate gates in groups of three with plexiglas, each cell with its own metal detector and TSA crew. There were no restrooms or restaurants within the cells.

Thus, I understand the point that changing planes in Kansas City would be somewhat of a pain, especially if one had to leave one cell to pass through another cell’s security to board a plane.

The cells, though, offer not only the short curb-to-gate distance but the ability to have parents and relatives with you right up until it’s nearly time to board the plane, as opposed to Denver where one boards at a central point and spends 30 minutes on train, moving walk, etc. to get to their gate. In fact, I have a story that involves me changing planes in Kansas City with my mom watching from the plexiglas.

Kansas City’s cell design also offers a baggage claim for every group of cells, where you can just get your luggage and leave. Try walking 100 feet from your gate to your baggage claim in Houston-IAH.

As a former resident and someone who desires to stay in Kansas City rather than bounce through it, I prefer the present configuration. If it becomes another DEN-IAH-MDW straight-terminal cookie cutter airport, it may get more business, but it will lose a lot of individuality and soul that make it one of my favorite airports.