Two years late and hundreds of thousands of dollars over its original budget, Miami International Airport's South Terminal will begin opening this week, offering passengers much more spacious and modern surroundings that rival other major facilities nationwide.
Walls of expansive glass windows frame the five-story terminal, which will feature a huge rotunda for dining, rows of shops -- that will be ready later -- and colorful artistic touches.
Totaling 1.7 million square feet, with 15 new gates in J and 13 gates in H, three checkpoints and a massive new federal inspection station for international travelers, the $1.1 billion terminal is equivalent to a new mid-sized airport, Miami-Dade Aviation Director José Abreu said.
''Opening the South Terminal really is a major event in this airport's history,'' Abreu said, citing it as MIA's first new terminal since the airport was built in the 1950s.
Still, the South Terminal's emergence has been beset by years of delays stemming from a shortage of construction workers, cost overruns largely tied to changes in plans, and time-consuming squabbles between the airport, contractors and consultants.
The terminal's opening -- which will be phased in, with Delta Air Lines arriving Wednesday, Air France Friday, Lan Airlines next Tuesday and others following through late October -- is critical to MIA's complicated, layered expansion plans. It is essential to allow carriers to move out of Concourse A, so that it can be closed Nov. 10 to ramp up construction of the $2.66 billion North Terminal, Miami-Dade Aviation Deputy Director Max Fajardo said.
story here
Walls of expansive glass windows frame the five-story terminal, which will feature a huge rotunda for dining, rows of shops -- that will be ready later -- and colorful artistic touches.
Totaling 1.7 million square feet, with 15 new gates in J and 13 gates in H, three checkpoints and a massive new federal inspection station for international travelers, the $1.1 billion terminal is equivalent to a new mid-sized airport, Miami-Dade Aviation Director José Abreu said.
''Opening the South Terminal really is a major event in this airport's history,'' Abreu said, citing it as MIA's first new terminal since the airport was built in the 1950s.
Still, the South Terminal's emergence has been beset by years of delays stemming from a shortage of construction workers, cost overruns largely tied to changes in plans, and time-consuming squabbles between the airport, contractors and consultants.
The terminal's opening -- which will be phased in, with Delta Air Lines arriving Wednesday, Air France Friday, Lan Airlines next Tuesday and others following through late October -- is critical to MIA's complicated, layered expansion plans. It is essential to allow carriers to move out of Concourse A, so that it can be closed Nov. 10 to ramp up construction of the $2.66 billion North Terminal, Miami-Dade Aviation Deputy Director Max Fajardo said.
story here
