DFW Airport’s new Terminal F won’t have its own check-in counters or baggage claim
Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport broke ground on a new terminal Tuesday morning.
Terminal F will be the airport’s sixth terminal, and is expected to open in 2027. The 400,000-square-foot terminal will be built on the current site of the Express South parking lot, which has closed. Terminal F is slated to have 15 gates, its own Skylink station and dining and shopping options for travelers.
Terminal F will not have its own security checkpoint, check-in area or baggage claim. Travelers will go through Terminal E, then take the Skylink. To handle the increased traffic, Terminal E will be expanded with an additional 100,000 square feet of security, check-in and baggage claim space.
The airport’s leaders remarked on the importance of the project to the region’s growth at Tuesday’s groundbreaking ceremony, which was held on the airfield next to an active runway.
“Partnership, growth and excitement continues to spread throughout the entire North Texas region, and DFW is at the epicenter of it all,” said the chair of DFW’s board of directors, DeMetris Sampson.
Talks for which carriers will have a presence in the new terminal are ongoing, an airport spokesman said.
Plans for the new terminal were revealed in 2019, then put on hold during the pandemic. The project was revived in 2023 with the announcement of the long-awaited Terminal F, as well as a significant overhaul of the aging Terminal C.
This will be the first new terminal built at DFW in nearly two decades, since the $1.2 billion Terminal D opened in 2005. At the time, it was the largest international terminal built since 9/11.
The new terminal is part of DFW airport’s roughly $9 billion capital improvements plan, which began this summer and is expected to take years to complete. The plan includes the renovation of Terminal C, expansion of Terminal A and an assortment of other infrastructure projects.
Work on Terminal C is underway, but won’t be done until 2030. The building hasn’t undergone a complete overhaul since the DFW airport was built in 1973.
Passenger traffic at DFW isn’t likely to slow down, despite construction. AAA projects a record 5.84 million people will take a domestic flight around Thanksgiving this year.
“We know construction will bring impacts to our customers, but we’re doing all we can to mitigate these impacts by being thoughtful about our phasing and communicating with travelers along the way,” said the airport’s CEO, Sean Donohue.
Over 81 million travelers passed through DFW last year, making it the third-busiest airport in the world.
This story was originally published November 19, 2024 at 1:05 PM.
