There was also offices and the Clipper Lounge for frequent fliers (see gallery below). On the mezzanine level, there was a cocktail bar, restaurant, coffee shop, bar, a nursery and the Clipper Hall museum, a homage to Pan American's pioneering heritage. Once the check-in process had been completed, they could wait in the lounge areas at the gates, step out onto the observation gallery, visit the concessions including kiosks for duty-free shops, or ascend to the mezzanine. Passengers checked their baggage at one of four check-in islands and then proceeded to one of two seat selection points to complete the pre-check formalities. Passengers entered the terminal through an open entrance with an air curtain maintaining the building's climate, a very novel feature at the time. By May 1960, the work had been completed. However, due to the design changes, construction did not commence until June 1958. Initially, the terminal was slated to open for operations in late 1958. Passengers would enter the door through a 89-by-ten-foo t "air curtain". The terminal would incorporate several innovations, such as a partially automated baggage system. Directly after entering the building, people could drop off their luggage at one of four positions, after which they would proceed to one of two counters to select a seat. This was changed to a two-step check-in process. Initially, there was supposed to be three rectangular islands with 48 check-in positions. The terminal's eight lanes of roadway could handle 60 to 62 cars every two minutes, or 1,800 vehicles per hour. In the final design, the terminal was capable of handling eight fully loaded 120-passenger Jet Clippers every hour. Also, the three extra gates at the end of the breakout were reduced from three to two and, ironically, would be equipped with conventional boarding bridges. The boarding planks had to be re-designed accordingly.
Now the planes would park nose-in to the building. Parking parallel to the terminal proved to be unfeasible in an all-jet configuration due to the lack of maneuvering space as well as the problem of jet blast. Later on, several changes were made to the design. This breakout could later serve as a link to a possible future extension. Three extra aircraft could park at the top of this structure during peak times, with passengers boarding via stairs. However innovative Pan American was at the time, somehow the remarkably simple and practical concept of a covered boarding bridge, predecessors of which had been around since the 1930s, had eluded them-it would be United Airlines that would pioneer the first modern experimental boarding bridge two years later at Chicago's O'Hare Airport in early 1958.Ī rectangular structure containing lounges and administration offices, protruded out from under the roof. Movable gangplanks would move out to the aircraft and people could board directly from the glassed-in central lobby.
Six aircraft, a mix of propeller aircraft and jets, would parallel park under the canopy. Instead, aircraft would park directly around the main building, thereby "bringing the plane to the passenger", as a marketing slogan at the time proclaimed. Architects Walther Prokosch of Tippets-Abbett-McCarthy-Stratton, and Emanuel Turano of Ives, Turano & Gardner Associated Architects, set out to design a signature building befitting America's de facto flag carrier. To add to the challenge, the site had a particularly short landside frontage due to the strong curvature of Terminal City in that location. Pan Am's site was only 17 acres (6.9 hectares). Thus, Pan American World Airways, as the premier US international carrier, and TWA, as the number two, were allocated the sites immediately adjacent to the International Arrivals Bulding (IAB) in order to minimize the distance their aircraft needed to be moved between international arrivals and their departure terminals. This meant that all international flights had to arrive at the IAB, with the exception of Nassau, Bermuda and San Juan, Puerto Rico, which had pre-clearance facilities. Before 1970, only the International Arrivals Building (IAB) had Federal Inspection Facilities at New York's Idlewild Airport.