San Francisco International Airport’s Terminal 2 may have been around for half a century, but former flyers would be hard-pressed to recognize the place today, after a $380 million makeover.
Virgin America is one of T2’s pair of anchor airlines. As of April 14 the discount airline will occupy seven gates. American Airlines gets six, and there will be one common-use gate.
This is no ordinary airport terminal. That’s obvious from the get-go. Instead of the traditional sterile gate-hold areas, Virgin America designed its gates to look like living rooms. There are elevated laptop workstations aplenty, replete with electrical outlets and Wi-Fi.
That’s terrific. But what sets this terminal apart is the conscious effort to render it environmentally sustainable. T2 represents the evolution not just of what Virgin Group Founder Sir Richard Branson dubs “the airport guest experience,” but it also “serves as a model for environmental design.” Consider, SFO says T2’s design will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by an estimated 1,667 tons per year.
Airport planners are playing favorites when it comes to parking and restaurants. San Francisco International is allocating preferential parking spaces in the Domestic Parking garage for the exclusive use of folks who drive hybrids.
Sustainability doesn’t stop with the parking garage. It manifests itself on your airport dinner plate too. SFO expects the restaurants and bars in T2 to use organic local products, organic or natural meats, cage-free antibiotic eggs, sustainable seafood, fairly-traded organic coffee, non-modified agricultural products, biodegradable to-go containers and utensils, low- or no- phosphate detergents, and compostable bio-resin or paper bottles for water.
Plastic is passé in T2. To that end there are “hydration stations” where you can refill your water bottles rather than tossing them.
Collectively, T2’s restaurateurs are Slow Food® vendors. This is the sort of place that gives airport food a good name. Among the folks serving up environmentally-conscious fare are Andale, Napa Valley Farms, Vino Volo, the Plant Café Organic, and Peet’s Coffee & Tea.
Peet’s promotes a custom-cup effort. Beans are ground to order and brewed individually in cone filters. The idea is to serve up freshly-ground premium coffees for flyers before they board. The coffee you quaff from Peet’s is sustainably grown, and the company says, “farmers…are being paid a fair price for their coffee beans.”
Fair trade is also very much alive in T2.
Virgin Group and SFO seem made for one another. Both appear to share the same environmental ethic, paying it something significantly more than mere lip service.
Virgin America is an increasingly important player at San Francisco International, the carrier’s home base. The high-frills, low-fare carrier now offers some 100 flights per day. It serves 14 destinations: San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York; Washington, D.C; Seattle/Tacoma, Las Vegas, San Diego, Boston, Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, Dallas/Fort Worth, Los Cabos, Cancun and Chicago. Flights to Chicago O’Hare lift off on May 25.
Story by Jerry Chandler
(Image: coolmikeol)
