Has Kansas City finally learned its lesson for KCI airport traffic tangles?
.JPG "KCI Traffic Officer Clyde Kemp, 64, asks driver Beth Fagala of Kansas City to move from the curb outside the airport terminal. Fagala of Kansas City has come to pick up her brother from Tampa, Florida. “I’m fine with this,” she said of the request to move.")
When it comes to picking up people at the new airport terminal, it appears that Kansas Citians have finally figured it out.
Yes, hurray, drivers looking to pick up passengers outside the new arrival gates at Kansas City International Airport seem to have finally learned where the cellphone lot is. (Best place to sit and wait prior to an arrival).
Nope, at least as of now — on the eve of the opening day of the NFL Draft at Union Station — the long, terrible, frustrating line that people have been complaining about since the new terminal opened in February was nowhere to be seen.
“We keep ‘em moving,” said Clyde Kemp, 64, a KCI traffic officer who, on Tuesday afternoon, waved one driver after another away from parking outside the arrival gates.
It’s the way it goes at pretty much every other major airport in the United States. As Kemp explains, whether Kansas Citians realize it or not, it’s always been that way at KCI, too.
“The same sign has been there since 1972,” Kemp said of the “no parking” restriction. “It’s nothing new. I was 13 when they put that sign there.”
Well, not exactly there. He means the old terminals also had signs that prohibited parking at the curb — even if people failed to heed them, or security was too kind to ticket.
“You see my area’s clear,” Kemp said, as he walked back and forth, moving vehicles.
Drivers didn’t seem to mind. Bart Nee, 52, of Olathe was sitting in his Hyundai Sonata waiting for a friend to arrive. He was there barely two minutes before Kemp walked up to his window and waved him on.
“Seems like an airport,” Nee said.
Beth Fagala stopped, too. “I’m just picking up my brother from Tampa, Florida,” she explained. He was coming to visit after the death of another sibling.
Kemp: Up to her window. Time to move.
“I’m fine with this,” Fagala said.
Kemp said that, initially, after the new terminal opened, the lines were terrible. People had grown used to pulling up to the gates at the old terminals and being allowed to sit, read, do the Wordle while they waited.
Rules are being enforced more consistently. They’re simple: Upon arriving to pick up a loved one, you can park in the nearby garage (cost is $3 for up to hour). Or you can take the Paris Street exit on the way into the terminal and wait in the free cellphone lot, 680 Brasilia Ave., until your passenger is standing outside the terminal. Once they’re waiting outside, go get them.
No one is going to stop you from picking someone up, and then quickly going on your way.
“You got to get in and out,” Kemp said. He’s worked at KCI since 2007 and been doing traffic for about five years.
Some people have balked, complained, yelled at him.
“Of course,” he said. “I take people as they come. I don’t have to holler at people. You just ask them nicely.”
Most people move, he said. If not, he can always issue a ticket. (Airport offiicials say 146 such tickets have been issued since the terminal opened.)
At first, most people had no idea where the cellphone lot was or that it even existed. Since then, airport officials have added large signs pointing the way and promoted the lot on social media. Now many people realize the cellphone lot is the place to be.
Brooklyn Braithwaite, 42, had already read a news story about what she called “the hiccups” in picking up passengers. She was in the lot waiting to pick up her daughter, 16, arriving from Austin, Texas, where she was visiting friends.
“They said make sure you go to the pickup lot,” she said So … she did.
UberX driver Shawn Young, 44, of Shawnee, said he’s had no significant problems waiting in the cellphone lot, waiting to be hailed for rideshare.
“It’s not bad. It’s better than the last airport,” he said.
Joe McBride, spokesman for the Kansas City Aviation Department, noted that many people arriving for the draft are likely to be from out of town, and thus will be getting rides at the “private vehicle curb” a little further from the terminal, where Lyft, Uber, ZTrip, taxis and rental car buses arrive.
KCI has increased the number of airport police officers, traffic control officers, maintenance and custodial workers, and customer support personnel. Airport “ambassadors” will be in the terminal to help visitors.
Young, the Uber driver, said that active traffic officers have made the pickup line much more manageable.
“People were like curb parking,” Young said. “It’s kind of like teaching your general population.”
One lesson passengers may need to learn: Don’t call the Uber before you get your bags.
“People don’t have their bags ready and they’re already calling to get picked up,” he said. “That’s part of it. They’re not at the curb for 10 or 15 minutes. Then you’re sitting there. I think just Kansas City people don’t know what a real airport is. I’m serious.
“Instead of blaming it on the airport, blame it on the people, that’s what I think. That’s what the story is, people need to do it the proper way. They need to come here. Until they’re standing on the curb ready to go, don’t go down there.”
He did offer one idea, a possible change in the signs to the cellphone lot.
“Maybe,” he said, “they should say, ‘Don’t go to the terminal until your passenger is ready. Turn here.’”
This story was originally published April 26, 2023 at 12:59 PM.
