It’s been years in the making, but the new Terminal 1 at San Diego International Airport is finally about to open.
“We have worked very hard with our partners, our stakeholders, and the community, and we are so excited to open up and share this Terminal 1 with people arriving and departing,” said airport spokesperson Nicole Hall.
The first flight into the new Terminal 1 is scheduled to arrive at 8:55 Monday night. The last flight out of the old terminal is set to depart 15 minutes later.
This is just the first phase of the Terminal 1 project. The new terminal will offer 19 gates at first, but when Phase 2 of the project comes online in early 2028, 11 more gates will be added. That will bring the total number of gates to 30.
Hall said passengers who’ve been in the old terminal will be pleasantly surprised when they first set foot in the new terminal.
“I think they'll find it to be much more spacious, much more filled with light and bright, airy rooms. The art is just extraordinary. Many more concessions, restaurants and specialty stores that feature elements of San Diego, even items in some of the retail stores that you would only find at smaller retail stores within San Diego,” she said.
Hall said the airport and the airlines will move everything they can still use into the new terminal, but some material won’t be reused.
“Some of those items will be donated to local nonprofits to help those organizations. The materials that are there in the existing Terminal 1 that are not moved or are not donated will be demolished,” Hall said. “We take great pride in being good stewards of the environment, so we try to repurpose and reuse almost all the material that we can.”
Hall said when the project is finally complete, passengers will be able to move between Terminal 1 and Terminal 2, while behind security. She says when complete, the entire new terminal project will have cost about $3.8 billion.
Hall also said the airport appreciates the patience of the public through the years-long process.
“We really appreciate all of the people that have traveled to the airport and endured some of the traffic congestion and other things that construction can impose. But we really appreciate the patients, and we're so excited to share this with San Diego,” she said.
The old Terminal 1, originally built in 1967, is scheduled to be demolished 10 days after it closes on Monday night. Hall said construction on the next phase of the new terminal will begin about three months later.
