We talked not long ago about the end of the Worldport at JFK. But it appears that American is set to counter Delta’s new expansion with its own. Even though it completed a multi-year megaterminal project at JFK which consolidated its operations from two terminals to one and was completed in 2007. American is talking about expanding its terminal make room for  OneWorld Alliance members British Airways and Iberia.
Meanwhile, back over at the Worldport, we received some artist’s renderings of what the future will be. Concourse B at JFK’s Terminal 4 will be expanded, and then a connector will be built to Terminal 2 from there. The closure of Terminal 3 and relocation to Terminal 4 should occur in May of 2013, and in May of 2015, the Worldport comes down. We wonder where the existing airlines at Terminal 4 who use the B Concourse will be going though.
Artist Rendering
JFK’s Terminal 4 has 16 gates today, six in concourse A and ten in concourse B. Concourse B will get an additional nine gates, but there is still room to add another ten to Concourse A someday, if needed. Concourse B will become a rather long concourse…and at its end will be a very long connector to Terminal 2. And while the facilities will be new, $1.2 billion will give them exactly the same number of gates, Terminal 2 is staying which has the same 1960s era security design issues that they claim for T3.
Perhaps Air France will come over to T4 to consolidate Skyteam Alliance operations with Delta, freeing space in Terminal 1 for airlines to move out of Terminal 4. It looks like the security checkpoints at Terminal 4 will relocate backward, and thus the current shop area which is outside of security will now be within it.
Hopefully, as some documents implied, this is merely Phase 1 of a plan. Because if you are consolidating, and Terminal 3 must come down, we’d rather you built a new domestic addition where it was and park planes on the grave of Terminal 2. It just seems a better idea in the long run.
What else can they do? Do you have any better ideas? Save the Worldport as a regional jet terminal space and knock down the 1972 extension? It seems a lot of money to gain no additional space? And to have a large amount of domestic flights still out of an old building.
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