See inside JFK airport’s new $9.5 billion worldwide terminal

It is from completed however the brand new, $9.5 billion Terminal 1 at John F. Kennedy Worldwide Airport in New York Metropolis is taking form. Its first part is slated to open in mid-2026.

It would exchange the present terminal, which opened in 1998.

The terminal, which will probably be JFK’s largest, is now weather-tight. Winding baggage conveyor belt buildings have been put in, and you can also make out future ticket counters, the place prospects flying carriers like Turkish Airways, Air New Zealand, Etihad Airways, Air China, Taiwan’s China Airways and others will set down their baggage and present their passports to ticket brokers.

The terminal — set to be roughly the scale of the 2 new LaGuardia Airport terminals that opened up to now decade mixed — will probably be devoted solely to worldwide vacationers, which the builders mentioned is vital to the design.

“From the very first pen to paper … we had the worldwide buyer in thoughts,” Jennifer Aument, CEO of the New Terminal One, the corporate growing the undertaking, mentioned at a press convention on the airport final month.

CNBC and different media received a have a look at the development progress, led by Aument, in early July as a part of what the corporate mentioned will probably be among the many final hardhat excursions of the ability earlier than opening day.

The undertaking is a part of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey’s $19 billion overhaul of JFK. Along with Terminal 1, the present Terminal 7, at present house to Alaska Airways and Eire’s Aer Lingus, will probably be knocked down for a brand new Terminal 6, whose first gates are set to open subsequent yr. LaGuardia Airport’s revamp, compared, was about $8 billion.

As air visitors grows, airports across the nation are racing to switch growing older infrastructure.

U.S. airports want no less than $173.9 billion for infrastructure upgrades from this yr via 2029, in line with a report earlier this yr by the Airport Council Worldwide-North America.

“These investments – averaging almost $35 billion yearly – are important to accommodate airways and passengers, enhance operational effectivity, elevate service high quality and buyer expertise, and fulfill airport resiliency wants,” it mentioned.

The brand new JFK Terminal 1 is about to open across the begin of the 2026 World Cup, when some video games will probably be held at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, about 30 miles away.

Greater than half of the airways at JFK are altering terminals within the coming years due to the development, Aument mentioned.

One factor she pointed to with the brand new design: “a terminal flooded with gentle.” Meaning no basement customs traces.

The departures corridor, safety lanes and customs will probably be on the identical degree of the three-floor terminal, which incorporates a wall of slanted home windows. Its design, led by structure agency Gensler, is meant to conjure the picture of a butterfly, with the physique splitting the terminal down the center.

The AirTrain, which connects the airport’s terminals and parking heaps with practice stations in Queens, is already operating via the development website and can cease on the terminal when the ability opens.

JFK’s overhaul additionally consists of roadway enhancements across the airport, the place visitors has crawled across the greatest hub within the area for years.

Terminal 1’s mid-2026 opening will embrace the departure and arrival areas and the primary 14 gates, all able to receiving wide-body plane which can be used for long-haul flights. It would have a capability for 14 million passengers a yr.

There will probably be 23 gates — 22 wide-body gates and one narrow-body gate — for planes like an Airbus A320 or a Boeing 737s — when the remainder of the undertaking is full, at present scheduled for 2030.

The ultimate model of Terminal 1 can even have greater than 300,000 sq. toes of eating, retail, lounge and leisure house, with greater than half, 180,000 sq. toes, only for retail and eating.

Aument mentioned the airport would be the just one within the U.S. with a cash-and-carry duty-free buying. Usually, prospects make duty-free purchases which can be returned to them earlier than boarding their flights. Nonetheless, on this format, they’ll take the purchases straight away.

The brand new terminal can even have its personal microgrid, with photo voltaic panels on the roof, that the developer mentioned will allow the ability to have “full resiliency and upkeep of 100% [of the terminal’s] operations within the occasion of energy disruptions.”

CORRECTION: A earlier model of this story misstated the scale of the terminal.