Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT) CEO Christina Cassotis is keeping her promise to travelers that they will enjoy the airport’s spacious new terminal by Thanksgiving.
The airport has set an opening date of Tuesday, Nov. 18 — just over a week before the holiday — for the new $1.7 billion terminal.
“This is a new day for our region,” said Cassotis in a statement Monday. “This is an airport built for Pittsburgh, by Pittsburgh. It improves the passenger experience and ensures this region remains on a global stage.”
Sneak peek: Pittsburgh’s glistening new $1.7 billion terminal that’s about to open
The new Pittsburgh terminal opens at a time of uncertainty for the airline industry. Airlines are canceling thousands of flights nationally due to the toll on air traffic controllers from the longest-ever federal government shutdown. Data from flight-tracking website FlightAware shows 16 flights departing Pittsburgh, or 8% of the airport’s scheduled total, were canceled Monday.
And the growth in traveler numbers at the airport, while still above prepandemic levels, flatlined in September, Allegheny County Airport Authority data shows.
Still, the new terminal ushers in, as Cassotis put it, a “new day” for Pittsburgh. No longer is the former US Airways hub saddled with a terminal complex designed for (much) busier days, but one designed and sized for the 21st century and the city’s future.
The new 811,000-square-foot building houses all airline ticketing and check-in counters, and the baggage claim. The check-in level features a soaring wood-toned ceiling speckled with pinpoint lights akin to stars in the night sky. Treelike supports hold up the structure.
“If we look at the building, and you walk through one of those beautiful forests around Pittsburgh, it’s all flooded with natural light,” said Luis Vidal, founding principal of Luis Vidal + Architects, on the design. “This wood-appearing ceiling is taking us back to remembering we’re in the middle of a pavilion, we’re in the middle of a forest.”
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Gensler and HDR, with Luis Vidal + Architects, designed Pittsburgh’s new terminal.
The terminal is connected directly to the airport’s existing concourses by a “Skybridge” that Vidal compared to the experience of exiting the city’s Fort Pitt tunnel and seeing Pittsburgh’s famous skyline on display before you.
When it opens, the airport’s existing terminal, which opened in 1992, and the train connecting it to the concourses will close.
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