On Jan. 2, eight more gates on the North end of Concourse D will close for the construction project. Travelers will be directed through a corridor down the concourse alongside sections of the concourse that are blocked off.
Concourse D is the narrowest of Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport’s seven concourses at 60-feet wide, forcing travelers to push their way through crowds during busy periods.
With the $1.4 billion project, the airport plans to make the concourse 99-feet wide and extend its length by about 288 feet.
The price tag includes $1.3 billion for the Concourse D widening, and $100 million to add three gates to Concourse E to mitigate the loss of gates. The project last year received $40 million in federal funding from the bipartisan infrastructure law, and will also be funded with airport bonds and passenger facility charges, which are the $4.50 fee per flight segment paid by airline passengers.
The airport is building the new pieces of the concourse at a construction site off Sullivan Road on the south side of the airfield, and on Thursday afternoon Mayor Andre Dickens, airport officials, construction company representatives and others signed a beam that was lifted onto the first frame built.
“This is an investment as we look into the future,” said Hartsfield-Jackson General Manager Balram Bheodari.
Next April, the airport will transport the first section of the concourse to the airport to attach it like a building block to Concourse D, which over the next four months will have construction work done to prepare for the new piece to be attached.
The sections will be about 40 feet tall, roughly 30 feet deep and up to 192 feet long, and will be transported with special vehicles slowly along the airport’s taxiways in overnight hours.
When the widening is complete, Concourse D will actually end up with fewer gates. While there are currently 40 gates there, the new widened version…
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