See inside JFK airport’s latest $9.5 billion international terminal

It’s miles from finished but the brand new, $9.5 billion Terminal 1 at John F. Kennedy International Airport in Latest York City is taking shape. Its first phase is slated to open in mid-2026.

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

The terminal, which shall be JFK’s largest, is now weather-tight. Winding baggage conveyor belt structures have been installed, and you possibly can make out future ticket counters, where customers flying carriers like Turkish Airlines, Air Latest Zealand, Etihad Airways, Air China, Taiwan’s China Airlines and others will set down their luggage and show their passports to ticket agents.

The terminal — set to be roughly the scale of the 2 latest LaGuardia Airport terminals that opened prior to now decade combined — shall be dedicated solely to international travelers, which the developers said is essential to the design.

“From the very first pen to paper … we had the international customer in mind,” Jennifer Aument, CEO of the Latest Terminal One, the corporate developing the project, said at a press conference on the airport last month.

CNBC and other media got a take a look at the development progress, led by Aument, in early July as a part of what the corporate said will likely be among the many last hardhat tours of the power before opening day.

The project is an element of the Port Authority of Latest York and Latest Jersey’s $19 billion overhaul of JFK. Along with Terminal 1, the present Terminal 7, currently home to Alaska Airlines and Ireland’s Aer Lingus, shall be knocked down for a brand new Terminal 6, whose first gates are set to open next yr. LaGuardia Airport’s revamp, compared, was about $8 billion.

As air traffic grows, airports across the country are racing to interchange aging infrastructure.

U.S. airports need no less than $173.9 billion for infrastructure upgrades from this yr through 2029, based on a report earlier this yr by the Airport Council International-North America.

“These investments – averaging nearly $35 billion annually – are essential to accommodate airlines and passengers, improve operational efficiency, elevate service quality and customer experience, and fulfill airport resiliency needs,” it said.

The brand new JFK Terminal 1 is about to open around the beginning of the 2026 World Cup, when some games shall be held at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, Latest Jersey, about 30 miles away.

Greater than half of the airlines at JFK are changing terminals in the approaching years due to construction, Aument said.

One thing she pointed to with the brand new design: “a terminal flooded with light.” Meaning no basement customs lines.

The departures hall, security lanes and customs shall be on the identical level of the three-floor terminal, which encompasses a wall of slanted windows. Its design, led by architecture firm Gensler, is speculated to conjure the image of a butterfly, with the body splitting the terminal down the center.

The AirTrain, which connects the airport’s terminals and parking lots with train stations in Queens, is already running through the development site and can stop on the terminal when the power opens.

JFK’s overhaul also includes roadway improvements across the airport, where traffic has crawled around the most important hub within the region for years.

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

There shall be 23 gates — 22 wide-body gates and one narrow-body gate — for planes like an Airbus A320 or a Boeing 737s — when the remaining of the project is complete, currently scheduled for 2030.

The ultimate version of Terminal 1 can even have greater than 300,000 square feet of dining, retail, lounge and recreational space, with greater than half, 180,000 square feet, only for retail and dining.

Aument said the airport shall be the just one within the U.S. with a cash-and-carry duty-free shopping. Typically, customers make duty-free purchases which can be returned to them before boarding their flights. Nonetheless, on this format, they will take the purchases straight away.

The brand new terminal can even have its own microgrid, with solar panels on the roof, that the developer said will enable the power to have “full resiliency and maintenance of 100% [of the terminal’s] operations within the event of power disruptions.”

CORRECTION: A previous version of this story misstated the scale of the terminal.