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With a multi-year, $2.5 billion expansion underway, Raleigh-Durham International Airport is making a couple of modest changes to increase capacity at its smaller passenger terminal.
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RDU will add about 1,600 square feet to the lobby of Terminal 1 to make room for three additional ticket counters and more space for people to wait in line. It also plans to add a third set of bathrooms to the passenger concourse.
Both moves are a response to the growing crowds using Terminal 1. For years, it was home to a single airline, Southwest, and often felt empty.
Now Southwest shares the building with four other airlines, including Breeze Airways, the fastest-growing carrier in the Triangle. Through June, Breeze carried more than 521,000 people in and out of RDU, more than twice as many as at the same point last year.
RDU eventually plans to expand Terminal 1 and add to the nine gates it has there now. But with that work still years away, the airport is looking for shorter-term improvements.
To enlarge the south end of the lobby, the airport will move a loading dock and a walk-in cooler to push out the wall. It can’t extend the building any further, though, without blocking access to a set of garbage dumpsters, said Charlie Tennant, RDU’s project manager for buildings.
“We expanded as much as we thought we could without really starting to impede other operations,” Tennant said.
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The new men’s and women’s restrooms will be built in space that is now a waiting area near Gate 4. About 25 seats will disappear, though some will be replaced with new seating at counters with power outlets in a space between the restrooms and the windows.
“We believe this becomes a nice amenity for business travelers where they can go plug in a laptop and have a more private area to complete some work or have a phone conversation,” Tennant said.
The RDU Airport Authority board Thursday approved a $1.6 million contract for final designs and the first phases of construction. The airport expects to eventually spend about $5 million on the project. Work is expected to begin next year and take a year and a half to complete, Tennant said.
On the other side of the parking decks, contractors have begun expanding the much larger Terminal 2. The first phase will add about 400 feet to the north end of the building to make room for new ticket counters, more baggage carousels and a larger Customs and Border Protection area for incoming international travelers.
RDU expects it will be 2029 before that work is complete. Contractors will then begin adding to the south end of Terminal 2, including an additional Transportation Security Administration checkpoint.
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