Photo courtesy of Goode Van Slyke Architecture
The approach Hartsfield-Jackson is taking to widen Concourse D from 60 ft. to 99 ft. is to prefabricated sections of the expansion so that construction can go on without closing the working concourse.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg joined local leaders April 25 at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International, the world's busiest airport, to mark a milestone in one of the country's major infrastructure initiatives.
Also on hand was Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens at the construction site where work is under way to build pieces of an expansion of Hartsfield-Jackson's Concourse D.
"For a long time, we were lamenting the condition of America's airports," Buttigieg said. Now, "we have the best and most innovative style of construction to deliver world-class terminals to the busiest airport in the world."
Officials gathered at the airport to commemorate the first move of a huge, prefabricated section of the addition to the concourse site a few days earlier, marking a step forward in the project to alleviate congestion in a crowded part of the complex, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported April 26.
Concourse D is the narrowest concourse at the Atlanta airport, and it becomes over-crowded during busy periods when passengers have to push their way through crowds to get to their flights.
Hartsfield-Jackson General Manager Balram Bheodari said he recognized that "the customer service level that we are providing [gets a grade of F] on Concourse D" and there was a "need to do something."
Passenger counts at the busy airport are only expected to continue to grow, according to the Atlanta news source, but the complex is too busy to be shut down for construction.
Rather, the approach Hartsfield-Jackson is taking to widen Concourse D from 60 ft. to 99 ft. is to prefabricated sections of the expansion so that construction can go on without closing the working concourse.
First $40 Million Got the Airport Project Going
The project received $40 million in funding from the federal bipartisan infrastructure law. Its total cost, including the construction of extra gates on Concourse E to make up for gates lost due to the work, will be $1.4 billion and take until 2029 to complete.
Buttigieg said the initial millions from Washington "made it possible to accelerate and advance this project" and is part of a larger flow of over a billion dollars of federal funding for airport terminal projects across the country.
The decades-old Concourse D was built "for a different time, the 1980s," he explained to assembled guests at the airport. But, Buttigieg added, "it's different in 2024 [with] the volume of passengers, [and] the size of the jets serving this airport."
Hartsfield-Jackson has been building the prefabricated sections of the concourse expansion at a construction site off Sullivan Road on the south side of the airfield, and contractors have spent months preparing to transport the prefabricated pieces.
The first section was very slowly and carefully transported to the concourse site in a complex operation carried out in the wee hours of April 24, the Journal-Constitution reported.
With its movement, Buttigieg said, "You're one step closer to that modernized concourse that will accommodate the volume of passengers who travel through enough." He added that the wider concourse "is a big deal, so you don't have to zigzag around other passengers to get to your gate."
The expanded concourse also will include more seating and larger restrooms and will be more accessible to passengers with disabilities.
Each huge building section is transported atop a self-propelled modular transporter (SPMT) — a motorized platform on wheels. The SPMT moves at about 1 mph and is typically used to transport large components like oil refinery equipment, bridge sections, roofs and other heavy materials.
Hartsfield-Jackson's concourse sections for the building expansion are about 40 ft. tall, 30 ft. wide and up to 192 ft. long. They will be transported to the site over a period several weeks, after which they will be attached to the working concourse like blocks.
"These building blocks are the building blocks of a lot more than an airport," Buttigieg continued. "They're the building blocks of the future of aviation, making air travel safer and easier and more comfortable for millions of people."
To be sure, there have been some disruptions to travelers, even with the prefabricated construction being done off-site. In an effort to eliminate most of those disruptions, however, the airport closed eight gates on the north section of Concourse D for the first phase.
While the new concourse at Hartsfield-Jackson will be wider and longer when the work is complete, there will actually be fewer gates than when it started. Airlines are shifting to larger jets, and the expanded concourse will go from 40 gates down to 34 gates but include more space for larger aircraft, airport officials told Journal-Constitution.
Mayor Dickens said the concourse widening means travelers will have "a more pleasant experience with us and it guarantees that Atlanta remains a city that's built for the future."
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