ATLANTA — Work to enlarge Concourse D at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport is closing in on a major milestone while passengers do business without disruption.
11Alive got a behind-the-scenes look at efforts to increase the height, width, and length of the concourse that opened in 1980. The original design accommodated planes smaller than those more commonly used now. When work is complete, Concourse D will widen nearly 40 feet and be 92 feet longer.
“I’m used to flying out of Orlando International,” said passenger Davandre Maitland. “There’s a lot more space there than there is at this concourse.”
As he waited for his flight to board, Maitland had no idea that a single wall separated him from the heavy-duty work.
“It would have been very easy for any construction team to walk in here and say we’re going to close off all these spaces,” said Edmund Ramos with Hartsfield Jackson’s Planning and Development team. “We have to take into account the traveling public.”
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Developing a plan that allowed construction and travel to exist in harmony took a year and a half.
“We’re going to open our first couple of gates here September 5th,” said Hartsfield Jackson’s Todd McClendon. ”We’ve really got to be organized and dialed in.”
It begins at a modular yard a few miles away where additions to the concourse are built, then rolled across the runways in the middle of the night. Crews are now busy connecting the new section of Concourse D to the old. Most of the work now is focused on communications cable that will, among other things, provide Wifi, run the information boards, and operate the alarm systems.
The area where construction is now taking place will open to passengers in early September. They will be shifted from the area where they now board, which will be dismantled and remodeled.
“What’s really going to be apparent is the volume of space,” said McClendon.
The entire project is scheduled to end in the summer of 2029.