Etihad Airways, the national airline of the United Arab Emirates, launched its daily Los Angeles—Abu Dhabi service in 2014, and has been the site of some recent Giroux Glass work on the new Etihad Airways Lounge in the Tom Bradley International Terminal at LAX. The airline previously used Star Alliance lounges for its business and first-class customers, before recently opening its own.
Etihad’s new lounge, beautifully designed by HO+K Architects, has been an exciting and challenging project to manage, as it was fast-moving, required high-security and had construction deadlines that were sensitive and critical to meet. That meant coordination between our company, Turner Construction (the general contractor) and other trades on-site had to be tight and focused on accomplishing set goals within roughly four months time.
Our scope included the installation of corner sliding doors in the VVIP Lounge (supplied by CRL), automatic entrance doors (Horton Doors), storefront glass as well as tempered spandrel glass in the reception area (GlasPro), a 20.05A glass door (Glasswerks) and restroom and shower mirrors (Avalon Glass). As sometimes happens, submittals and providing alternatives due to long lead times (such as searching for a local alternative for our glass walls, which led us to use CRL bi-folding glass walls) also made this project a challenge. A few other elements that complicated the project for us included meeting LEED requirements, expediting materials and providing structural support, but at the hands of our experienced team and with the helpful guidance of Tom Molinaro and Andy Gull (fellow PMs in our Commercial department), the project moved along smoothly.
Our Union-trained glazing team, consisting of Richard Aparicio (foreman), Randy Sharp, Mike Duren and Randy Barquera, our qualified CAD team, Michelle Fainberg and Simon Molino, and the project’s estimator, Eva Robertson, were the primary reasons for the success of this project, in addition to our superintendent, Kelly Edwards, who kept us all in close communication.
Playing a part in constructing this beautiful, new lounge was a rewarding experience for me as a project manager, and I’m very happy to say that it has become another design icon at LAX.
by Abdul Aziz Zoua, commercial project manager at Giroux Glass, Inc.