One section of the narrowest concourse at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport just got a bit roomier.
After months of work at the world’s busiest airport and middle-of-the-night movements of building parts across the airfield, the first six expanded gates of the Concourse D widening project are opening.
Three expanded gates opened Thursday, and another three will open today, according to airport officials. The six gates are the first to open in a complicated and expensive Concourse D makeover that is expected to take until 2029 to complete.
Concourse D has for years been the narrowest concourse at the Atlanta airport, with hallways and gate areas that get jam-packed during busy periods.
“It can get quite congested,” said Frank Rucker, Hartsfield-Jackson’s senior deputy general manager of infrastructure, during an airport podcast this week. “If I had to rate a level of service, it would probably be close to definitely an F.”
That prompted airport officials to develop a $1.4 billion plan to widen the concourse while continuing to operate flights out of it. The project received $40 million in federal funding from the federal bipartisan infrastructure law, and construction began last year.
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Sections of a new wider concourse were built off site, then in April the first of those huge building pieces were carefully transported across the airfield in the wee hours when flights slow to a trickle.
Credit: WSBTV Videos
Eight gates were closed during the first phase of construction, while boarding bridges and the exterior of the building were removed.
Then, five new building pieces were attached to the working concourse like building blocks, followed by work done to the interior.
The newly opened gates are in operation, but there is still some work to be completed.
“The new area is what we call ‘in a warehouse condition,’” said Tom Nissalke, assistant general manager of planning and development at Hartsfield-Jackson. The ceiling and final finishes “will be worked on primarily at night,” he said.
The full Concourse D widening project will be done in phases to keep most of the D gates still operational. All told, the full project will increase the size of Concourse D floor space from about 125,000 square feet to 225,000 square feet.
Credit: Source: Hartsfield-Jackson
Credit: Source: Hartsfield-Jackson
Off-site construction for the second phase has already begun, and seven other gates will close todayto prepare for the work. Movement of the new building pieces will begin in January 2025 and continue through next year.
When it’s completed, Concourse D will go from 60 feet wide to 99 feet wide. The number of gates on D will actually decrease from 40 to 34, but the gates are designed to handle larger aircraft, including the Airbus A321 Neo and Boeing 737 Max.
As part of the Concourse D widening project, $100 million is going toward adding three gates to Concourse E to make up for D gates lost during construction. Those gates are expected to be completed in February.
The D widening is one of a number of major projects underway at the airport, along with construction of a new South parking deck and completion of a Plane Train tunnel extension.
Also planned for future airport construction projects are demolition and reconstruction of the existing domestic terminal parking decks, renovation of Concourse E and the domestic Terminal North check-in lobby and expansion of the North checkpoint, according to Rucker.
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