Newark to Open $2.7 Billion Terminal Before End of the Year

By Yehudit Garmaise

Newark Liberty International Airport’s brand-new, brightly lit, one-million-square-foot Terminal A won’t be ready for passengers until the end of the year, but today, officials cut a ribbon to celebrate its completion. 

For more than four years, Newark has been constructing for domestic flights its newest $2.7 billion terminal, which includes 33 gates and 20% more space than Newark’s previous Terminal A.

In addition to new shopping options, artwork by two dozen New Jersey artists, and a cheerful façade, Terminal A includes technology upgrades, such as touchless security checkpoints.

The security procedures will all take place in the center of the terminal, which abcny7 called “an upside-down T.”

Instead of the usual scenario of crowds of people bunched together in terminals, Terminal A’s T- shape allows passengers "plenty of room to spread out to all the gates" after passing through the central checkpoint, said John Del Giorno, a pilot who flies a helicopter for NewsCopter7’s news teams.

Del Giorno also pointed out that when Newark was built in 1928 and later upgraded to an international airport in 1970, the airport was never prepared to accommodate the extensive security procedures of 2022.

"What the old terminals lacked was room for modern security," Del Giorno said. "That was never envisioned in the early 1970s."

The end of the year is not a moment too soon for the many American travelers who have returned to traveling at 98% of the rates that they did before the pandemic

With 54.6 million people expected to hit the road starting at the end of November, the American Automobile Association (AAA) expects this Thanksgiving to be the busiest travel season since the group starting tracking travel rates in 2000.