Airport Experience® News - Leadership & Culture Issue 2023

LATEST BUZZ

MAKING A STATEMENT IAH’s International Terminal Expansion Aims For Five-Star Passenger Experience

BY SARAH BELING

ravelers passing through Houston’s busy George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH)

claim facility, while the new D-West Pier will accommodate 10-narrow or 6-wide body aircraft as well as new passenger seating, dining, and retail concepts. Jim Szczesniak, chief operating officer, IAH, says the need to update the airport’s international capacity stemmed from a solid three-plus decades of passenger growth, with more predicted on the horizon. “The existing international terminal opened in 1990,” he says, “and since then traffic has more than quadrupled through that facility.” In 2015, the team began analyzing “where we were at, and the forecasted growth for Houston, and it was pretty evident that we needed to expand international capacity for the airport,” he adds.

Above: Terminal upgrades at the Mickey Leland International Terminal will modernize and expand the facility, which is more than 30 years old.

T

will soon experience a significantly expanded international terminal, as work on the facility’s D-West Pier and International Central Processor (ICP) chugs toward opening. The updated spaces at the Mickey Leland International Terminal are part of the $1.4 billion International Terminal Redevelopment Project (ITRP), the most ambitious expansion in the history of the airport. The project’s International Central Processor will feature 66 new check-in kiosks, 24 self-service bag drops, a 17-lane security checkpoint and a new baggage

11

AX NEWS LEADERSHIP ISSUE 2023