New terminal construction announced at New York airport

The governor of New York, Kathy Hochul, announced the construction of a new terminal at the John F. Kennedy airport (better known as JFK), the largest in the city and among the largest in the world, which will cost about 9.5 billion dollars and will be operational in its first phase by 2026.

The new structure, which will be called New Terminal 1, will have 223,000 square meters, will be built in what are now terminals 1 and 2, considered obsolete, plus the abandoned space of what was terminal 3, later demolished.

In total, the project will require an investment of 9.5 billion dollars and will employ about 10,000 people.

New Terminal 1 will have 23 gates, which will gradually open from 2026 to 2030.

It is not the only major project at JFK: Terminals 4, 5, 6 and 8 (which will be built on top of the current Terminal 7) are currently about to be expanded.

JFK airport is considered one of the economic engines of the New York region: it employs 300,000 people, pays 16.2 billion dollars a year in salaries and generates 45.7 billion dollars a year in sales. Before the pandemic, it reached a record 62.6 million passengers in 2019.