The Salt Lake City Department of Airports (SLCDA) has officially opened the first phase of a $4.1bn project.
The department opened a new parking garage, gateway centre, central terminal and Concourse A-west.
Delta Air Lines will occupy the 25 gates in Concourse A-west, including six international gates. Concourse B-west will have 20 gates for Alaska, American, Frontier, JetBlue, Southwest and United airlines.
The project also includes a two-level roadway system with an elevated road designated for departures.
The airport can accommodate 3,600 vehicles in the parking area, which is equipped with a camera-based sensor system that indicates where open spots are located. It also features 56 places to charge electronic vehicles.
In addition, the airport features car rental counters and quick-check airline ticket counters, as well as 16 security screening lanes with automatic return bins to enable touchless travel.
SLCDA has installed seven miles of luggage conveyor belts to accommodate oversized bags such as skis, snowboards, bike boxes and golf clubs.
In addition, a temporary bridge is in place that connects the new terminal to the original airport concourses from 27 October 2020.
SLCDA executive director Bill Wyatt said: “This day has been years in the making. To say we are excited to be here today is an understatement. After six years of construction and many more years of planning, we are proud to open the first new US hub airport in the 21st century.”
The new airport has been built to accommodate the increasing passengers and also to replace the outdated infrastructure.
In 2019, SLC Airport was said to have recorded more than 26 million passengers while the original airport was designed for ten million passengers.
The new concourses were designed in a parallel configuration to eliminate aircraft bottlenecks and idling. This is also hoped to facilitate airlines to bring their aircraft quickly to the gate and take off quicker.
