Travelling through Miami International Airport (MIA) — one of the leading United States gateways to the Caribbean — is expected to be a much more pleasant experience with the completion next fall of a three-phase expansion project on the North Terminal, the Latin American and Caribbean hub for American Airlines and its partner American Eagle.

Phase two of the US$2.8-billion North Terminal expansion, slated for completion this August, will boast 25 additional gates, including a reopened Concourse A, and a one-mile-long rooftop automated people mover system capable of transporting 9,000 passengers per hour between connecting flights. There will also be a state-of-the-art baggage screening and delivery system with the capacity to process 8,400 bags per hour from the check-in area directly to the gates.

The first phase of the project — which included new areas for curbside check-in, ticket agents, self-service check-in and domestic baggage claim — opened for business last November.

Last week, journalists from Jamaica and Trinidad, who were invited by American Airlines to experience the sights and sounds of Miami, got a first-hand look at the newly expanded facility as well as a sneak preview of some of the things to come.

When completed next August, the entire North Terminal will also feature a 72-lane Federal inspection area capable of serving 3,600 international passengers per hour and an eight-lane re-check inspection area for passengers connecting on international flights.

According to the MIA, the North Terminal will be transformed into a 50-gate super hub with the capacity to serve more than 30 million passengers per year .

“It will be ranked as one of the most efficient hubs in the world,” Greg Chin, media relations manager at Miami Dade Aviation Department, told Sunday Finance in Florida last week.

Caribbean tourism officials have often complained about the need to make the MIA more user friendly to the millions of passengers who travel through that port to the region on a yearly basis.

Their concern is often raised against the background that US Department of Transportation data show that Caribbean countries, like the Bahamas and Jamaica, were ranked among MIA’s top 10 international markets.

In fact, Jamaica was ranked eighth among the more than 100 international markets for MIA with some 604,278 passengers passing through that port to the island in 2008.

According to Chin, the airport’s steady passenger traffic in 2009 made it the busiest in Florida and the second leading airport in the US, beaten only by JFK in New York. The MIA also regained its top spot as the busiest airport in Florida after trailing Orlando for the last five years.

“MIA continues to be Florida’s leading international gateway handling 69.5 per cent of the state’s arrivals from abroad which is more than all the other airports in Florida combined,” Chin disclosed.

That port also retained its domestic market serving 17.9 million domestic passengers in 2009 and 16 million passengers from abroad.

This, he argued, was despite a full-year of economic world-wide recession which saw passenger loads at many other airports declining at a time when MIA maintain stable levels welcoming some 33.9 million travellers in 2009 – a half a percentage point from the previous year.

The MIA handles some 800 flights in a day with American Airlines accounting for some 65 per cent of that amount.

Expansion to the American Airlines hub forms part of a US$6.2-billion Capital Improvement Programme (CIP) now underway. The CIP encompasses all aspects of airport operations from the terminal and roadways to the cargo facilities and the airfield.

A major project of the CIP was the construction of MIA’s fourth runway. Operational in September 2003, Chin said the 8,600-foot runway has increased MIA’s airfield capacity by 25 per cent. This, Chin further added, extends the ability of the airport to sustain growth while decreasing the cost of delays to airlines and passengers.

And with the county-operated airport having to fund its own budget, even more creative ways have been found to boost revenue from advertisements and the leasing of shops to concessionaires. The expansion of the facility further creates the environment for this as some 40 new shops are slated to be opened in the busy port when expansion is completed, some of which are already operational.

He explained further that under the Disadvantaged Business Enterprise, a certain number of the concessions are awarded to local and minority business owners.

The shops are varied which, Chin explained, is a deliberate strategy for travellers to have an opportunity for last-minute shopping.

He said that failure to recover adequate revenue means a greater portion of the operational cost would have to be passed on to the airlines operating from that port.

“We have to do this because what does not come in from our revenues is trickled down to the airlines to pay,” he told Sunday Finance.

While admitting that smaller airlines shy away from operating out of MIA because of the associated costs, Chin said the charges at the airport work out to be a better deal, given that airlines are required to pay for various services at other airports.

“MIA does not fit the business model for low-cost carriers because of the costs but when you add up what they are paying to do themselves at other airports it works out to be the same,” he explained.