Which type of terminal provides more gates and more room inside itself for ticketing, concessions, and passenger services?

Which type of terminal provides more gates and more room inside itself for ticketing, concessions, and passenger services?

• A. Hub-and-Spoke
• B. Linear
• C. Radial
• D. Compact

Answer: (B)

Think about how the terminal’s layout shapes both gate capacity and the space available for passenger processing and shopping. In a linear terminal, gates are arranged along a long, single building with a continuous concourse on both sides. This setup makes it easy to expand the terminal by simply extending the building or adding more finger piers along that length, which increases the number of gates without reworking the core layout. The central spine houses ticketing, security, baggage, and immigration in one straightforward flow, so you also gain abundant, uninterrupted space for ticketing desks and a wide range of concessions and passenger services along the full length of the concourse. The result is a design that scales well for more gates while maintaining ample interior space for shops, lounges, and other services. Other layouts tend to distribute gates across separate satellites or spokes, which can fragment the interior service areas and complicate expansion. For example, with a hub-and-spoke design, gates are on distant concourses connected to a central hub, so increasing gate capacity often involves enlarging multiple areas or adding transportation between hubs, making it harder to keep a single, expansive interior for processing and retail.

Think about how the terminal’s layout shapes both gate capacity and the space available for passenger processing and shopping. In a linear terminal, gates are arranged along a long, single building with a continuous concourse on both sides. This setup makes it easy to expand the terminal by simply extending the building or adding more finger piers along that length, which increases the number of gates without reworking the core layout. The central spine houses ticketing, security, baggage, and immigration in one straightforward flow, so you also gain abundant, uninterrupted space for ticketing desks and a wide range of concessions and passenger services along the full length of the concourse. The result is a design that scales well for more gates while maintaining ample interior space for shops, lounges, and other services.

Other layouts tend to distribute gates across separate satellites or spokes, which can fragment the interior service areas and complicate expansion. For example, with a hub-and-spoke design, gates are on distant concourses connected to a central hub, so increasing gate capacity often involves enlarging multiple areas or adding transportation between hubs, making it harder to keep a single, expansive interior for processing and retail.