New gates opened at Salt Lake City International Airport
May 16, 2023, 9:30 AM | Updated: 2:27 pm
A new concourse opened at Salt Lake City International Airport on Tuesday, one that will cut down on the amount of walking to get to flights. The concourse will boast more gates by the end of October 2023. (Adam Small, KSL NewsRadio)
(Adam Small, KSL NewsRadio)
SALT LAKE CITY — “This is a big deal,” Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall told reporters on Tuesday as new gates were opened at the Salt Lake City International Airport.
Instead of making a “hard left” after passing through security, travelers can now turn right. That’s where they’ll find the first five gates of Concourse A.
“With these five gates, thousands of people will be able to have a more convenient experience here at our airport,” Mendenhall said. The rest of the gates of Concourse A-East will open later in 2023.
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The new concourse at Salt Lake City International Airport opened in September 2020, in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic said Bill Wyatt, the executive director of airports for Salt Lake City.
“We’re standing on the bones of the old airport, this was Concourse D … to have that out of the way, all of the demolition completed, and this concourse well on its way is very exciting for us.”
Wyatt said the next milestone isn’t that far off, four additional gates will open in the new concourse in August. Then, the entire concourse will open at the end of October.
This is particularly good news for travelers who’ve grown accustomed to bussing and walking a half-mile to get to their plane.
“That’ll all be gone at that point (end of October, 2023.)” Wyatt is referring to what airport officials called “the hard stand,” or, the process of walking to Concourse B and then taking a shuttle bus to a passenger’s plane.
The new gates are the first step to eliminating that work-around.
The first flight to depart from Concourse A-East on Tuesday was Delta flight 394 to Atlanta. One passenger described the experience as being very different than the old airport.
“Very very different, this is a nice new gate,” the passenger told KSL. “It’s huge,” his traveling companion said.
(Utah’s Morning News interviewed airport spokeswoman Nancy Volmer about the new concourse, the full segment is below.)
