A new wing of Concourse T is now open at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, the first such gate expansion at the world’s busiest airport in a decade.
There are five new gates in the expanded concourse, and an existing gate is being reconfigured to handle larger aircraft.
Four of the new gates surround a circular atrium, which will also soon have concessions including a Starbucks, the Atlanta airport’s first Vino Volo wine bar and a Southern National Market with gourmet pizza.
Credit: Jenni Girtman
Credit: Jenni Girtman
The gate expansion has been years in the making. An early estimate in 2016 was that the project would cost $200 million. By 2019 that had risen to $330 million. The total cost is now $341 million, according to Hartsfield-Jackson.
The first four gates around the atrium, T18-T21, started handling arrivals and departures in mid-October. United Airlines is using the new gates, moving flights from Concourse D to consolidate operations on Concourse T.
“It’s certainly modernized,” said Dana Jones, a traveler from New Jersey waiting for a flight at one of the new gates. When the new food and beverage concessions open, “that’ll be nice,” she said. “There weren’t a whole lot of options on T previously.”
The airport plans to hold a ribbon-cutting for the Concourse T extension next month, when the concessions are due to be completed.
Credit: Jenni Girtman
Credit: Jenni Girtman
Jet bridge construction is underway for a fifth gate, T17. A reconfigured gate, T15, is scheduled to be completed by the end of February 2023.
The last major expansion for Hartsfield-Jackson was the opening of the $1.4 billion international terminal in 2012, which added 12 gates, a second entrance to the airport to the east, parking decks and other infrastructure.
The new Concourse T gates were tacked on to the north end, adding a curve at the end of the concourse to house the circular gate area in limited space. The circular gate area and the curved concourse section are unusual elements for Hartsfield-Jackson, which has a series of parallel concourses connected by Plane Train.
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