The long-awaited day has arrived: the new departures terminal at
Ezeiza Airport
, which includes the famous
"Zeppelin"
, was opened .
The building has almost 70 self-check-in stations, automatic baggage clearance, and even 3D CT scanners to monitor hold luggage without anyone touching it.
President Alberto Fernández inaugurated it this afternoon, but the operation will begin on Monday night, with a flight to Cancun.
From that moment on, the names A, B and C disappeared.
The new terminal will concentrate the departures of all the Ezeiza airlines,
A -on its left- will be for international arrivals, and C -on its right-, for international arrivals. nationals.
The A arrivals area is linked to this building by a wide corridor.
The connection with C will be ready in three months.
There is also
direct underground access to the multi-level parking garage.
The famous "Zeppelin" is inside the terminal, on its upper floor, and houses the security and immigration control area.
Like those airships,
the building itself is imposing
: 250-meter-wide front, 45-meter-high, 50,000 square meters, 380 tons of glass and a metal structure weighing 2,550 tons, the same as the weight of 400 elephants together.
The total investment was US$ 230 million.
On the ground floor there are five check-in islands with
150 counters
, 68 self-check-in points and 24 posts for self-baggage drop-off with 150 scales and 150 label injectors.
Four of these positions are on the entrance path to the terminal.
The Zeppelin is an airship-shaped structure that will be inside the new departures terminal at Ezeiza Airport.
Photo: Andrés D'Elia
On this ground floor there is also chain gastronomy, with Starbucks, Le Pain Quotidien and the American franchise Outback, an Australian-inspired "grill" restaurant that already has locations here and in Aeroparque.
"The prices in these restaurants will be the same as those outside Ezeiza
," promises Sebastián Villar Guarino, the airport's general manager.
As in any other terminal, there is also a kiosk, pharmacy, regional products store and drinking fountains, some even with space to refill the bottle.
And the Wi-Fi password?
You don't have to ask for it: there is a free and unlimited service, without prior registration.
the zeppelin
At the far left of the terminal,
four escalators allow you to get on or off the Zeppelin
, completely carpeted in green.
You enter it after going through one of the 15 automatic readers of the Fotopoc system, which work with biometric identification to enable -or not- access.
The new departures terminal at Ezeiza Airport has a modern bag dispatch system.
Photo: Andres D'Elia
Once there, you go to the Control area of the Airport Security Police (PSA), with five hand luggage scanners, four of which have double gutters: in case they detect any unacceptable liquid -such as a
bottle
of water- automatically divert the bag on the exit rollers to a second side channel, allowing the rest of the bags to continue exiting the equipment without delay.
Next is the Migration area, with
32 common booths and four "Fast Pass" booths,
a paid system for those who want to speed up the process.
After this process, you arrive at the free shop, in front of which is the access to the pre-boarding area, at gate 12.
The baggage that goes in the hold, meanwhile, is transported on belts that total 2,250 meters, crowned by four 3D tomographs that
inspect up to 1,024 bags per hour each
.
This speeds up the dispatch process, since it is monitored remotely, in adjoining rooms.
By having 3D technology, luggage can be viewed from the point of view you want without touching it.
The interior of the new departures terminal at Ezeiza airport has 150 counters, 68 self-check-in points and 24 posts for dispatching hold luggage.
Photo: Andres D'Elia
“The biggest investment is in the Baggage Handling Systems (BHS), which allows classifying the luggage of all passengers.
You dispatch outside and it automatically deposits it in the carousel that corresponds to your flight.
This way you eliminate the possibility of some kind of suitcase opening because,
from the moment you leave it until it reaches the carousel, no one touches it”
, explains Villar Guarino.
This inauguration comes
three and a half years late.
And the pandemic was not the only culprit.
Construction had started in September 2017. The national government, at that time under the command of
Mauricio Macri,
planned to enable it before the end of 2019.
But the works were suspended in September of that year after a fatal collapse: one person died and thirteen were injured after a scaffolding collapsed on the construction site.
The victim was the foreman
Humberto José Bulacio (50)
, a neighbor of Florencio Varela and since 2013 an employee of TANE SRL, the company responsible for the scaffolding.
Through the pandemic,
the works were only resumed in July of last year
and continued, without interruptions, until today.
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