New JFK Terminal Seeks To Set The Bar For Public-Private Partnership

Passengers traveling aboard Air France, Korean Air and a host of other major international airlines flying to New York John F. Kennedy Airport (JFK) will arrive at a massive, modern new international terminal starting in mid-2026, the most expensive element of JFK’s sweeping $19 billion overhaul.

In addition to welcoming passengers to New York City and the US more broadly, the new terminal will serve as a significant test case for a privately-run terminal in a country that has largely shied away from turning control of airports over to entities other than those that are public organizations such as airport authorities. Led by global airport developer and operator Ferrovial, a private consortium called New Terminal One (NTO) is financing the cost of the facility and overseeing construction, which began in 2022.

The first phase of the project, set to be completed in 2026, has a pricetag of around $9 billion, for which capital has been secured. NTO will then need to raise over $2 billion for the second phase, scheduled to be completed in 2030.

The consortium will run the terminal under a long-term lease with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey that extends through 2060, similar to how many airports in Europe, for example, are managed. The Port has oversight of JFK, New York LaGuardia and Newark airports.

“This is fully privately funded,” NTO CEO Jennifer Aument told ATW. “We obviously have significant skin in the game.” She added that NTO “is a stark contrast to companies that may come in and be involved in the construction or they may be involved in a service-provision contract. We’re a true owner and a partner to the region for the long term.”

Aument said she understands that municipalities throughout the US will be looking at how successful the public-private partnership (P3) being used to build and manage the new JFK terminal is, and whether it could be extended more widely in a market where local governments and airlines finance most airport terminal projects.

“We feel the weight of the responsibility here in the US market for making this public-private partnership a success for all parties,” she explained. “And that means first and foremost our [passengers], our airline partners, our government partners and then the local community as well. We feel the weight of that because we’re not just transforming JFK’s new terminal, we’re also providing a very important domestic proof point for the US market as to how a public-private partnership can be a very effective way to both construct and, over the long term, provide a great standard in customer service in airport terminals.”

The new terminal is being built to “anchor JFK’s south side,” according to NTO, and will sit on land that had been occupied by three terminals, including the existing Terminal 1, the closed Terminal 2 and the former Terminal 3. The first phase, which is slated to finish in the first half of 2026, will include an arrivals and departures hall and 14 gates. By 2030, the terminal is expected to have 23 gates and span 2.4 million square feet.

Around 30 airlines are expected to serve the terminal, with seven already signed up: Air France, Air Serbia, Etihad Airways, EVA Air, KLM, Korean Air and LOT Polish Airlines.

Aument said the new terminal will have a mix of international airlines, including some already serving the existing Terminal 1, those serving other terminals at JFK and also newcomers to the airport.

“We expect significant amounts of traffic and service to the Europe and Asia markets, and then also strong service to Latin America and Africa,” she explained. “We’re obviously pulling a lot of that from airlines now serving JFK, but we also believe we’ve got a lot of interest from airlines that would be first timers to JFK.”

When the terminal opens in 2026, it will have “14 widebody gates, two of which are capable of taking an [Airbus] A380 or the largest [Boeing] 747s that are still flying,” NTO COO Simon Gandy said in an interview in his office near JFK. “So, we’ll have a huge capacity to take widebody aircraft generally.”

Construction on the new international terminal had been scheduled to start in 2020, but was delayed to 2022 because of the pandemic. That means there has been a lot of energy put into raising capital and building, but NTO executives say the terminal’s amenities and technology will be critical.

TRANSFORMATIONAL WORK

“We’re making this pivot,” Aument said. “There’s been a lot of attention on the capital project delivery and rightfully so—it’s an extraordinary building and it’s very exciting to go out there and see our vision coming to life through the construction of this terminal. But the really transformational work is beginning now in terms of what we’re doing around our guest experience, around procuring our key [concessions] partners.”

She added that the passenger “experience really dominates everything that we’re doing, even at this phase, and that means not just the design of the terminal—we’re procuring every service for this terminal. Whether you are involved in [food services] or involved in janitorial services, all our procurements have to meet our customer service standards.”

Gandy said his goal is to make the terminal “a place where you might not want to leave” or at least be a pleasant facility to be in during a long layover, which leads to concessions revenue. “Non-aeronautical revenue at airports has certainly grown over the last 20 years and continues to be a really important staple of the overall revenue for an airport,” he explained. Gandy said concessions partner Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield Airports is “well versed at providing concessions within airports.”

He added that the international-only nature of the terminal will be attractive to airlines and global travelers. “I think it’s unusual in the US to have a dedicated international terminal,” Gandy said. “So, the point around an international terminal is there are very different models compared to a large domestic terminal that may have an international product sitting within it, because your largest volume by far is going to be your domestic traveler, and, therefore, some of the services will be geared more towards the domestic terminal operation.

“All of our services, from check-in through security and on, will be geared towards what the international traveler needs. And the international traveler wants processes to happen smoothly. They want the terminal running like a Swiss watch. They actually want the cream on top [in terms of customer service] because generally they’re flying much longer distances than a domestic traveler. … Our goal is to make sure that the passenger is ready for a great flight because they’ve had a great experience at the terminal.”

Gandy said the New Terminal One team has intensely studied top airports around the world for ideas to “make sure we’re picking up on all of those elements Singapore Changi is putting in and Seoul Incheon and others are deploying.” He said NTO wants to create a “front door” to New York and the US that is “really exciting and really engaging.”

Much of the customer service experience will be facilitated by technology, but Gandy said NTO is being open regarding specifics because of the pace of technological change.

The use of biometrics to enable passengers to clear various touchpoints in the terminal, for example, is “absolutely part of the solution, and we’re working very closely with the TSA on how we implement that,” he explained. “But we’ve also got to remember that, in the period between now and opening day, technology will have moved on,” and NTO wants the latest proven technology in the terminal.

Passengers are warming to the idea of biometrics, he added: “I think people are starting to get very used to their face being that key enabler, not just in the smartphone that you walk around with today, but also with how you acknowledge somebody as they’re going through a process, whether it be check-in, whether it be security, whether it be boarding at the gate.”

WIDER REVAMP

The New Terminal One project is part of the overall revamp of JFK that also includes a $4.2 billion Terminal 6, which is also scheduled to have its first phase of construction completed in 2026, with full completion set for 2028. This year, Delta Air Lines and the Port are scheduled to complete the $1.5 billion expansion of Terminal 4, a project for which Delta serves as the general contractor. The airport also opened a $400 million expansion of Terminal 8 in 2022.

“Consistent with the standard we have set for all of our new and modernized terminals, the New Terminal One will be spacious, airy and filled with natural light, with locally inspired dining and retail, iconic public art, state of the art technology and intuitive digital wayfinding,” Port spokesperson Tom Topousis said, calling NTO “a critical component” of JFK’s modernization. The new international terminal will be JFK’s largest terminal.

The JFK work follows an $8 billion modernization of New York LaGuardia Airport that has received highly positive reviews.

Aument said the NTO project, for all its complexity, is on track. “You walk into the terminal site now and you can see for the first time the scale of this terminal,” she explained. “We’re in good shape on construction. We’re on schedule and on budget and working towards an opening in mid-2026. So, we’re really at a pivotal moment where we continue to move forward on the construction, but now we’re shifting to an operational readiness period where you are going to see real acceleration.”