I was looking at old photos of Denver Stapleton and noticed something on the photos below. The first photo is an aerial that shows at about Gate B16 a DC-10 with the jet bridge connected to the starboard side. The location of this gate is at the bottom right of the photo. This was United's concourse. The second photo appears to show that jet bridge positioned to board on the starboard side of an aircraft but there is no aircraft there. It almost looks like if a larger aircraft was parked in that position they had to board the other way. Has anyone seen aircraft boarded with a jet bridge this way at other airports?

http://airfieldsfreeman.com/CO/Stapleto ... planes.jpg

https://www.airliners.net/photo/United- ... %2BgWdgjDu

There is an old thread about right-side jetbridges: viewtopic.php?t=198609 . One thing in the post that was interesting is that, at least on RJs and narrowbodies, doors on the right are narrower or positioned differently from the opposing side. Narrower doors = more space = more seats. That could be the reason this basically never happens anymore, certainly not to my knowledge.

I did deplane a BA L-1011 at JFK once from the starboard side. I can't remember for certain if it was by jetbridge or stairs. We were off schedule and landed in thick fog, requiring a "follow me" guide vehicle to the gate.

On a related note, in aircraft with catering in the belly, is there a catering access door, or does everything go on and off through the passenger deck?

I’ve never thought of it before now, I’ve always boarded from the port side. Usually the starboard side doorway is full of crap and boxes on flights I’ve boarded.

TWA parked widebodies at one of the flight wings at their Kennedy terminal in such a way that they had to do starboard boarding. They did it regularly with the L1011. At both Stapleton and Kennedy, the airlines severely outgrew their terminals once the industry boomed after deregulation. If you look at that first image of the United DEN concourse, it looks like they basically wedged in another gate by parking aircraft to the right of where they would naturally have been at the innermost end of the concourse (directions are reversed in the image), and then gradually sliding over to the left of where they would naturally fit with each gate further outward. By the last gate, the airplane is so far to the left of the door that they reversed the jetway and put it up to the starboard side. At a slow time when there was no airplane in the gate next door they could probably have pulled that gate's jetway up to the port side. If you look at it, they were able to maximize space by parking the DC-10 pretty far from the terminal, and then tucking smaller aircraft inside of its port wing at the next gate over. The move out to DIA solved the space problem!

At AA JFK back in the late ‘80s we used to deplane and board our DC10’s from the right side sometimes. That was such a weird thing. And I want to say it was gate 5 or 6, but not sure about this. Oh. And we would use both the 1R and 2R doors.

At many Indian airports, planes doing domestic to international turns or vice versa dock at the international terminal, deboard the domestic pax through stairs on the starboard side and board the international pax through the port side jet bridge. This is seen quite often.

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CV-580 in ORD (mid 1970s) an elderly lady went down to the ramp to board through the plane's air-stairs, but somehow got confused and went around to the other side and sat on the belt loader and ended up in the forward baggage compartment (on main level.) Luckily there was a door from the baggage compartment into the main cabin. No harm, no foul.

NameOmitted wrote:

On a related note, in aircraft with catering in the belly, is there a catering access door, or does everything go on and off through the passenger deck?

The L-1011 had an elevator.

NameOmitted wrote:

On a related note, in aircraft with catering in the belly, is there a catering access door, or does everything go on and off through the passenger deck?

The TriStar had a catering door between the forward cargo door and the wing.



The catering door can be seen in the first Eastern photograph, on the wing-to-body fairing, with the single window, on the lower fuselage almost directly below the falcon. In the second photo, the catering truck is parked at that door.

justplanesmart wrote:

NameOmitted wrote:

On a related note, in aircraft with catering in the belly, is there a catering access door, or does everything go on and off through the passenger deck?

The TriStar had a catering door between the forward cargo door and the wing.



The catering door can be seen in the first Eastern photograph, on the wing-to-body fairing, with the single window, on the lower fuselage almost directly below the falcon. In the second photo, the catering truck is parked at that door.

This is what makes this site fantastic. Thank you

FAT5DEP wrote:

I was looking at old photos of Denver Stapleton and noticed something on the photos below. The first photo is an aerial that shows at about Gate B16 a DC-10 with the jet bridge connected to the starboard side. The location of this gate is at the bottom right of the photo. This was United's concourse. The second photo appears to show that jet bridge positioned to board on the starboard side of an aircraft but there is no aircraft there. It almost looks like if a larger aircraft was parked in that position they had to board the other way. Has anyone seen aircraft boarded with a jet bridge this way at other airports?

http://airfieldsfreeman.com/CO/Stapleto ... planes.jpg

https://www.airliners.net/photo/United- ... %2BgWdgjDu

Te initial DC-10-10 & L1011 would not have had an issue with that as the main galleys were in the fwd hold.

[twoid][/twoid]

aacun wrote:

At AA JFK back in the late ‘80s we used to deplane and board our DC10’s from the right side sometimes. That was such a weird thing. And I want to say it was gate 5 or 6, but not sure about this. Oh. And we would use both the 1R and 2R doors.

I remember that! As a flight attendant, it was a little confusing directing passengers to their seats at first, it took some getting used to.

Wingtips56 wrote:

I did deplane a BA L-1011 at JFK once from the starboard side. I can't remember for certain if it was by jetbridge or stairs. We were off schedule and landed in thick fog, requiring a "follow me" guide vehicle to the gate.

This used to be common at the BA JFK terminal- I disembarked many BA 747's that way in the 70's/80's.

A lot of cool info in the responses! I spent a lot of time in the 80s going to Denver since my dad was based out of there. I had just never noticed that as a kid. In another photograph of that concourse there is a 727 at that gate boarding for the port side. I wonder if they had it striped differently based on which aircraft was coming in. Before United remodeled Concourse B it doesn't look like they had that set up that way.

pilotsmoe wrote:

NameOmitted wrote:

On a related note, in aircraft with catering in the belly, is there a catering access door, or does everything go on and off through the passenger deck?

The L-1011 had an elevator.

As does nearly every airplane..........



Nyuk, nyuk.......

Here is right side deboarding on a 757, shown briefly nearing the clip's end.
https://youtu.be/lHT2GlY7UQk

NameOmitted wrote:

justplanesmart wrote:

NameOmitted wrote:

On a related note, in aircraft with catering in the belly, is there a catering access door, or does everything go on and off through the passenger deck?

The TriStar had a catering door between the forward cargo door and the wing.



The catering door can be seen in the first Eastern photograph, on the wing-to-body fairing, with the single window, on the lower fuselage almost directly below the falcon. In the second photo, the catering truck is parked at that door.

This is what makes this site fantastic. Thank you

The L-1011-1/-100/-200/-250 (the long body version) had this. The L-1011-500 had a main deck galley and no elevator, if I remember right.

The L-1011-1/-100/-200/-250 (the long body version) had this. The L-1011-500 had a main deck galley and no elevator, if I remember right.

And British Airways to be different removed the lower galley from their -200 Tristars and moved them upstairs. They also moved the CB panels into the roof by L2/R2 like on the -500.
This was to get a bigger fwd freight hold. BA Tristars had the large fwd freight door to carry pallets in the fwd hold.

I never understood why we can't have a gate that boards from both sides. It would make filling up a widebody a lot faster.

PHX-T2. TWA had one for a bit
DEN-Concourse B. UA had 2
ORD-Concourse G. TWA had 1
JFK-T1. EA had 1
JFK-T3. PA had multiple
JFK-T5. TWA had 2
JFK-T6. TWA had 1

barney captain wrote:

pilotsmoe wrote:

The L-1011 had an elevator.

As does nearly every airplane..........

Which is why Lockheed referred to that thing that took you to the lower galley as a "lift".

and got rid of the lower ovens as well

pilotsmoe wrote:

NameOmitted wrote:

On a related note, in aircraft with catering in the belly, is there a catering access door, or does everything go on and off through the passenger deck?

The L-1011 had an elevator.

many DC10's had lower galleys but there was no way to get out if the elevator went out of service so they gor]t rid of them to be able to use the same galley carts and ovens across the fleet. once the 747-100's were retired. .The -400 only had main deck Galleys
the

Ziyulu wrote:

I never understood why we can't have a gate that boards from both sides. It would make filling up a widebody a lot faster.

I don't know if there would be room for that if each plane needing a certain amount of space for servicing and turning a plane to get it going again.

I recall that gate at Stapleton and seeing a UA DC-10 boarding from the “wrong” side. Only time I have ever seen boarding on the starboard side or at least a bridge up to that side.

I recall that gate at Stapleton and seeing a UA DC-10 boarding from the “wrong” side. Only time I have ever seen boarding on the starboard side or at least a bridge up to that side.