DALLAS — DFW airport leaders — donning hard hats and orange construction vests — hammered into a large cutout of Terminal C in a ceremonial wall breaking Thursday, kicking off a $3 billion project to modernize the concourse.
“It will open up the concourse, give more space, give more light, give more opportunities for all of our concessionaire partners who are owned by local companies,” said DFW Airport CEO Sean Donohue.
It’s a part of what the airport has coined DFW Forward - 180 projects, including the construction of the brand new Terminal F, to support the historic growth in air travel in and out of North Texas.
“Gosh, when you look at the economic success of this region and some of the projections for the region over the next 50 years, we have to get ahead of that growth,” Donohue said.
Passengers like Timothy McNeil will tell you how bad the upgrades are needed.
“I've been flying in and out of DFW for about the last 30 years,” said McNeil. “It just looks old now and of course, in a contemporary city like Dallas or the metroplex like Dallas-Fort Worth, you really want it to kind of reflect a little bit more.”
The airport says the finished product will look a lot like Gates C35-C39 built during the pandemic.
“So it will be a superior customer experience,” said Donohue.
Both the ticket counters and security checkpoints at C30 are already closed as construction starts. And inside, the airport plans to revamp the terminal in 6 gate intervals.
“We know there's going to be disruption, we can't eliminate it, but we're really, really focused on how we can limit it,” Donohue said.
Which is why DFW Airport is building the terminal in modules on a non-secure part of airport property that the airport will transport and install in large sections.
“It saved us 30% in time and it saved us almost 30% in cost,” said Donohue.
DFW Airport is aiming to have the renovations complete by the end of the decade.
