The Port of Seattle released the latest design images for the new $660 million International Arrivals Facility at Sea-Tac airport that is scheduled to break ground early next year and to open in late 2019.
The Port of Seattle released the latest design images Thursday for the new $660 million International Arrivals Facility at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, scheduled to break ground early next year and to open in late 2019.
International passengers arriving at Sea-Tac today disembark at the south satellite terminal, which is seriously overcrowded at peak times.
There, they must go through passport control and customs and wait for their bags. On exiting this space, many passengers then load their bags on a conveyor belt and take a train to the main terminal where they have to wait at another baggage carousel to reunite with their luggage one more time.
The new International Arrivals Facility (IAF) is a 450,000-square-foot, self-contained add-on that wraps around the current Concourse A in the main terminal building.
The IAF will be connected to the south satellite by a 900-foot-long aerial walkway, a bridge that will take passengers 85 feet above the existing airplane taxiway and over the top of Concourse A.
That bridge will be prefabricated offsite, transported to the airport and installed within a seven-day time-frame, the Port said.
With the new IAF space, the number of passport check booths and kiosks for arriving international passengers will increase from 30 to 80.
The number of bag claim carousels will increase from four to seven and there’ll be a single bag claim process, eliminating the need for the train ride.
Sea-Tac currently sees daily peak international arrival levels averaging over 2,000 passengers per hour for a facility designed for only 1,200 per hour, according to the Port
The new facility will increase that peak capacity to 2,600 passengers per hour.
Port of Seattle Commissioners will vote in October on approval to accelerate the construction phases of the IAF project.
The project is the largest piece of a major expansion of the airport designed to accommodate the accelerating growth of passenger traffic.
For the past two years, Sea-Tac was the fastest-growing large airport in the U.S. Last year, passenger traffic grew a record 13 percent. This year, it’s already up 10 percent.
Earlier this month, the Port approved the finalized design for a separate $550 million construction project at Sea-Tac — renovation and expansion of the North Satellite terminal used exclusively by Alaska Airlines.