Passenger Terminal World | June 2025
15 July 2025
With a US$1.5bn investment, JFKIAT’s renewed 185,800m² Terminal 4 has risen above unprecedented challenges to deliver a streamlined and passenger-focused journey
When JFK International Air Terminal (JFKIAT) first announced its plans for the T4 redevelopment, the project looked a little different from its current incarnation. Initially authorized by the PANYNJ board as a US$3.8bn expansion, this vision would have conjured 16 narrow-body gates, a US$400m whole-terminal transformation and a massive expansion of the headhouse and roads.
The development was led by Delta Air Lines and JFKIAT, with the primary goal of consolidating Delta operations in T4 (previously, the airline had operated out of both Terminal 4 and Terminal 2).
Only one problem: this all happened in February 2020. “Then the Covid-19 pandemic hit,” recalls Roel Huinink, CEO of JFKIAT. “As a result, we basically had to throw everything in the bin and start again.”
Despite the turbulence, the team at JFKIAT couldn’t just delay the project. Delta’s domestic terminal was being knocked down, and the terminal operator needed to accommodate its customer’s operations by January 2023 at the latest.
Huinink continues, “After going all the way back to the design board, we decided to build a US$1.5bn version of everything we had planned.
Overall, the project was delivered on budget and on time. There are a couple of items still at design stage, such as the arrivals hall redevelopment, because Delta’s re-check process is complicated. Otherwise, we’re mainly finalizing punch-list items. I think it would be safe to say that by the time this issue comes out in June 2025, we’ll be 100% completed.
Looking to the future, Makinen concludes, “The design of this construction has been futureproofed. For example, the design of A Concourse does not prevent us from expanding to a Phase 3, which would be an expansion with more domestic and potentially a limited amount of international gates...
Further details: Passenger Terminal World : June 2025
