THE ATRIUM AREA BETWEEN THE CENTER CORE AND MEET-AND-GREET WELCOME POINT WITH BAGGAGE CLAIM. | RENDERING COURTESY OF PITTSBURGH INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

It all began with a scribble on the back of a receipt.

When Pittsburgh International Airport CEO Christina Cassotis was discussing with other aviation leaders her dilemma about what to do about Pittsburgh’s way-too-big-and-outdated airport, Jeff Fegan, former CEO of Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, had an idea.

He made the bold suggestion of moving the landside terminal building over to the airside terminal — making it one complex. Why do you need two buildings, connected by a half-mile tram? He illustrated his idea on the back of a restaurant receipt dated April 2, 2015.

THE SCRIBBLE ON THE RECEIPT THAT SERVED AS A STARTING POINT FOR THE NEW DESIGN. | COURTESY PITTSBURGH INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

“I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, that’s a great idea,’” Cassotis recalled at the time. The scribble evolved into a rough blueprint for the $1.7 billion terminal that is on track to open this fall.

City and regional leaders see the new terminal as a way of reintroducing Pittsburgh to the world — and the city will get that opportunity in a big way next April, when the NFL Draft is expected to draw 700,000 to the Steel City.

“For us, from a travel perspective, the airport is oftentimes the very first impression and the very last impression that a lot of travel consumers have of the destination,” says Jared Bachar, president and CEO of VisitPittsburgh. “Travel is a $6.8 billion sector in Allegheny County alone, supporting 40,000 jobs. So having an airport that is world class, that is cutting edge, is absolutely critical to everything that we’re trying to do to continue to move in a direction of being hyper-competitive as a travel destination across the board.”

The design is quintessentially Pittsburgh. Signs are in black and gold. A pedestrian bridge and tunnel — patterned after the Fort Pitt Tunnel and Bridge — connects landside operations with the airside terminal. The undulating roof mirrors the region’s rolling hills. A larger and more comfortable meet-and-greet area at baggage claim acknowledges the charming habits of Pittsburghers who come inside to pick up their loved ones, friends and colleagues — a practice that Cassotis says is “rare” these days at airports. The restaurant and retail corridor is packed with local brands.

A RENDERING OF THE MEET-AND-GREET AREA. | COURTESY OF PITTSBURGH INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

When the current terminal opened in 1992, The New York Times called it the “airport of the future.” It served as a model for other airports around the world. It also was built to be the largest connecting hub for US Airways; it was a place where 80% of travelers simply changed planes.

At its peak in the mid-’90s, the airport served 21 million passengers per year. But in 2004, as US Airways struggled through two bankruptcies, it abruptly canceled its lease for the hub.

That led to the loss of two-thirds of its passengers. And with that action, PIT became an origin-destination airport, meaning travelers flew out of Pittsburgh and returned to Pittsburgh. Now, about 10 million are using the airport each year; only 2% are switching planes.

The new 811,000-square-foot terminal, which broke ground in October 2021, is “right-sizing” and modernizing the airport for Pittsburgh’s future, airport officials say. By eliminating the half-mile tram that links the two terminals, passengers will be able to go from curb to gate in half the time it takes them now. And the airport will save $25 million a year in operating and maintenance costs, says Paul Hoback, chief development officer and executive vice president of the Allegheny County Airport Authority.

“The whole point was to redefine what it means to be an airport, and what it means to its community and to a global industry,” Cassotis told a group of international aviation leaders meeting at the new terminal in May.

The design of the new terminal, developed by Gensler + HDR in association with Luis Vidal + Architects, follows trends across the aviation industry: New terminals or airport spaces are bringing in more natural light and greenery and adding outdoor spaces. They’re creating sustainability, enhancing comfort and wellness and tailoring design, artwork and amenities to the specific city.

In a major preparation for the new terminal, a dress rehearsal of sorts will be held on Sept. 20 in which 2,000-2,500 volunteers will be testing all aspects of the airport. PIT hired Daniel Bryan, an industry consultant who has overseen similar tests at airports around the world, to lead the tests here. When PIT put out the call for volunteers in late June, it expected 3,000 to 4,000 people to respond; instead, 18,000 signed up. Bryan will be helping to select the volunteers who will best represent all types of travelers — families, those with disabilities, those who don’t have smartphones or aren’t technologically savvy, business folks and the leisure traveler.

The airport also has scheduled a Community Open House for the public from noon to 7 p.m. on Oct. 11 for people to explore at their own pace all aspects of the new terminal.

When opening day arrives, the switchover will occur during the few hours in the middle of the night between when the last flights of the previous day depart and arrive, at about 11 p.m,, or later, to when the first flights depart on opening day before dawn. The roads to the new terminal are finished, and new directional signs are up. Just a single strip of Jersey barriers needs to be moved to open up the new roadway to the new terminal.

Cassotis is confident the new terminal will be well-received.

“It’s going to work for the passengers,” she says. “It’s going to work for the people who work here. It’s going to work for the people who pick up and drop off. And it’s going to work for our partners.”

The Design

A RENDERING OF ONE OF THE OUTDOOR TERRACES. | COURTESY PITTSBURGH INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

When PIT officials embarked on the terminal project, they brought in architectural teams with the aim of finding and building collaboration first before considering design.

“We wanted to find a firm that was going to be very collaborative — but also disruptive a little bit, and not avoid conflict because we believe conflict was something that could help elevate the design,” Hoback has said.

They selected a pair of global firms – Gensler + HDR and Luis Vidal + Architects.

The next step was getting them acquainted with the Steel City — to show them what made Pittsburgh Pittsburgh. Bill Flanagan, senior advisor for the Allegheny Conference on Community Development, took them on a bus ride around the city. They looked at the city skyline from Mount Washington; they walked through Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens; they toured the universities; they drove through neighborhoods.

The firms came up with a design theme based on their observations: Nature, Technology, Community — or NaTeCo.

You see nature in the steel columns shaped like trees that stretch to the ceiling in the departure area. You see it in the tall windows and wavy, wood-like ceiling (the panels are actually made of metal to look like wood; developers learned that the wood could warp) that bring in natural light, cutting down on the use of electricity. You see it in the constellation lighting. And you see it in other greenery and the four outside terraces.

Each of the terraces — two before the security checkpoint and two post-security — will be filled with native plants, walkways and benches. Rainwater will be collected and recirculated to water the landscaping, says Chad Willis, the authority’s vice president of planning, environmental and sustainability at PIT.

“The use of nature — natural light, ventilation, color, vegetation, outdoor activity — all those things are very rare in an airport, and this will be one of the very first airports in the world to take advantage of all these possibilities,” architect Luis Vidal said in an airport video.

Another aim of the design is to reduce travel stress. “We’re trying to reduce stressors and stimuli as much as possible,” Siri Betts-Sonstegard, senior vice president of experience and design for the airport authority, said on a recent tour of the new terminal.

“We can’t be a completely quiet airport, but we’re trying to reduce, [for example,] sound coming out of speakers — we put that into our concession agreements … We’re really creating a sense of calm, because we know [that] travel can be difficult.”

PM Managing Editor Sean Collier contributed to this report.

Ticketing & Security

The airline ticket counters are in the main lobby, where passengers enter the airport for departures. Each airline counter will have a lower section accessible to wheelchairs. Improved signage, lighting and design aim to help more quickly guide travelers through this area.

From there, travelers will follow signs or the constellation lighting in the ceiling to the security checkpoint. The distance between the individual lights in the ceiling narrows as they progress toward the checkpoint — serving as a decorative wayfinding tool.

There are 12 public Transportation Security Administration lanes (double the number of what’s in the main security area now), including lanes for TSA PreCheck, CLEAR and Priority boarding. The number of lanes dedicated to each will vary according to demand; there’s also an additional line exclusively for staff and airline employees.

With state-of-the-art scanning equipment, travelers no longer will have to remove phones, tablets, laptops or liquids, Hoback says. And, because of a change recently made by the TSA, they don’t have to remove their shoes, either.

Peak waiting times to get through the new TSA lanes have been estimated to be no more than 30 minutes, he says.

Once through security, passengers will walk 160 feet across a bridge and through a tunnel — which emulates the entrance to Downtown through the Fort Pitt tunnel — to get to the airside terminal, with its shops, restaurants and gates. A wall of video screens on each side of the bridge will present wayfinding information and more. Once passengers get through the tunnel, they’ll take escalators or elevators down to the center core of the airside terminal to the gates.

Checked baggage will be handled on the terminal’s ground floor, where robots will be assisting TSA agents in their inspections of suspicious bags and those that trigger alarms. Currently, the agents have to pick up a suspicious 50-pound bag, take it to another belt, open it, inspect it and then manually return it to another belt.

“We will have 41 robots in this airport that do all of that,” Hoback says. “The TSA agent will never have to lift up that bag, which is certainly a safety issue” and can cause back injuries for the agents. He added that PIT will be one of a handful of airports using robots in this way.

Getting There

COURTESY OF PITTSBURGH INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

Visitors to the new terminal at Pittsburgh International Airport will take the same exit off of Interstate 376 that they do now. They will enter the airport property on a similar horseshoe-shaped roadway as they do now — it will just go deeper into the property. And they’ll use the same exit out of the airport property as they do now.

In fact, passengers may not even notice much change as they use the new airport roadways —- and airport officials say that is by design.

Passengers will be directed by overhead signs to parking options (including a new garage, with more than 3,200 spaces for public parking — tripling the number of covered parking spaces currently at the airport), or to a double-decker bridge on the front of the terminal that will separate traffic into three levels. The top is for departures, like it is now. The middle is for arrivals, dedicating space to passenger pickup. The bottom level will be for all rideshares, taxies, vans and buses.

Gone will be the current confusion at the baggage-claim level, in which passenger pickup is on one side of the building and public transportation, rideshares and taxis are on the other.

Regarding parking, there now is a designated cell-phone lot where drivers can park at no cost while waiting to pick up arriving passengers. It will be near the entrance to the airport property and will be called the Free Wait Lot, where motorists can wait, for free, for up to an hour.

There are 2,800 spaces in the Terminal Lot, a surface lot next to the terminal, plus those in the new Terminal Garage. The garage will offer a “smart parking system” that will assist drivers in finding open spaces on the four floors of public parking. Travelers would walk to the terminal from these two areas. More parking will be available in the airport’s Shuttle lots, currently known as the long-term, extended and economy lots. From here, travelers must take shuttles (with new, bigger buses) to the terminal. The bus shelters will be heated, and buses have been upgraded to better accommodate those with disabilities.

Shopping & Dining

Over the last year, new stores have opened or expanded in the airside terminal. More are yet to come — in a combination of local businesses and national chains.

Many of the 15 new stores and restaurants being added were requested by local travelers and visitors. “We’ve listened to what our travelers wanted — a balance between showcasing not only our local brands, but also having the availability of unique and respected national and international brands,” says Travis McNichols, chief operations officer for the Allegheny County Airport Authority.

“We know many different types of travelers go through our airport every day, and we want to ensure that our offerings meet the needs of everyone that we serve.”

Even before the switch to the new terminal, these new retail and dining options opened their doors.

Hammer Made — A men’s clothing retailer founded in Minneapolis, Hammer Made has about 10 locations in malls and airports around the country. This location, the first in the Pittsburgh area, opened in July in Concourse B.

Duquesne Supply Co. — This Pittsburgh-centric gift shop carries such items as: locally made Tabbara Chocolates, Sarris candies, Pittsburgh Popcorn Co. products, Una Biologicals and Spectrum Fudge; mugs, shot glasses, keychains and more bearing “Pittsburghese” terms including “nebby” and “yinz”; hot sauces, OMG Pretzels and more.

Sambazon Acai Bowls — Found in many airports and universities around the country, this Brazilian-influenced chain offers acai bowls, smoothies and other healthy options.

Champion City Sports — This shop offers Steelers, Penguins and Pirates gear and memorabilia, an interactive sports simulator and all sorts of gifts. It also has collaborations with Build-A-Bear and Vera Bradley franchises.

MAC Cosmetics — A national cosmetic company, MAC also has counters at area Macy’s, Nordstrom and Ulta locations.

Jimmy John’s — A national sandwich-shop chain.

More stores and restaurants are due to open before the new terminal debuts, including the region’s second location of Shake Shack, a fast-casual restaurant based in New York. It is slated to open in the former McDonald’s spot in the center core in September.

Mineo’s Pizza, a Squirrel Hill institution, also will be in the center core. Two locally owned coffee chains are planned: Convive Coffee, which will be opening in Concourse A, and two locations of Wexford-based Cafe Conmigo, in the center core across from Sarris candies (opening in early September) and in the meet-and-greet area. Also in the center core will be Mi Casa Cantina, at the entrance of Concourse B; Bad Egg Breakfast Bar, a breakfast spot found in other airports; and Stack + Press Delicatessen.

The Gates

Seating in most areas has been upgraded to be more comfortable and to include in-seat device chargers. Original artwork also has been added to the gate areas.

Bathrooms along the concourses have been modernized or are undergoing improvements. In particular, stall doors are being changed to open out rather than in — to allow ample space inside for carry-on luggage. Each concourse will include a nursing room, as well as a bathroom with an adult changing table.

Presley’s Place, a 1,500-square-foot room that provides a quiet, peaceful spot for people with sensory sensibilities and their families, will remain near Gate A9. It opened in 2019 after a PIT heavy equipment operator dropped a comment in the CEO suggestion box asking the airport to provide a quiet place for children like his son, Presley, who has autism. The room is now serving as a model for other airports around the world.

Kidsport, a 2,100-square-foot aviation-themed play area for children, is being revamped in collaboration with the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh and will reopen in Concourse C.

Baggage Claim & Meeting Spaces

One of the major changes in the upgraded baggage system involves the distance the checked luggage will now travel from plane to baggage carousel — it’s being reduced from 8 miles to 3, Hoback says. The carousels also are larger.

Does that mean that the bags will be waiting for passengers as soon as they arrive at baggage claim? Not necessarily, Hoback says. Passengers will have a much shorter distance to walk from plane arrival to baggage claim — absent the tram ride — so they’ll get there in less time.

But there will be a circular bar, two outdoor terraces and other amenities at baggage claim to help pass the time. It’s part of the expanded meet-and-greet area, named Welcome Point, which addresses the “Community” part of the NaTeCo theme. Pittsburghers like to park their cars and go inside to wait for loved ones or friends rather than just picking them up at the curb, Hoback says.

“We want a place for families [or] business partners to be able to wait,” Cassotis says, “so they would have access to the landside terraces, free security, great views of the airfield.” She calls the practice of face-to-face meetings “lovely.”

From baggage claim, those seeking rental cars will head to the Customer Service Building out front. They’ll then walk through a covered pedestrian walkway to the parking garage, where the rental cars are parked to be picked up.

Art & Amenities

Pittsburghers will be pleased to see the return of the Alexander Calder mobile called “Pittsburgh,” which is now hanging in the atrium of the departures area. It had hung in the airside terminal since 1992 — and since 1959, at the older airport in Moon.

The piece, designed with paddle-like forms suspended on metal rods that rotate with air currents, won first place in the 1958 Pittsburgh International Exhibition of Contemporary Paintings and Sculpture (now known as the Carnegie International) at the Carnegie Museum of Art. After the exhibition, it was purchased by G. David Thompson, who donated it to Allegheny County; at times it traveled to exhibitions around the world, including to Guggenheim Bilbao in Spain. Calder, who was born outside of Harrisburg, died in 1976 at age 78 in New York City.

Three statues now greet travelers at the entrance of the landside terminal: George Washington, 19th-century investigative journalist and world traveler Nellie Bly and Pittsburgh Steelers legend Franco Harris. Harris definitely will be placed in the new terminal; at press time, officials were trying to figure out places for the other two. Still up in the air is whether there will be places for the replica of the Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton (provided by the Carnegie Museum of Natural History) or Miss Pittsburgh, the restored Waco 9 airplane that made the first airmail flight from Pittsburgh to Cleveland.

The Hotel

The 11-story, 338-room Hyatt Regency is the only hotel on airport property, and it has been connected to the landside terminal via a peoplemover since it opened in 2000. It loses that connection once the new terminal opens.

A system of shuttles will run between the hotel and the new terminal. These are being paid for through a settlement reached on June 27 between the Allegheny County Airport Authority and owners of the Hyatt Regency. That settlement includes a payment of $152,000 to Hyatt Regency owners MCSW Penn Hospitality LLC the first year and increases in subsequent years to cover the costs.

Floor Plans

These are the floor plans of the departures and arrivals levels of the new landside terminal.

Future Growth at the Airport

Beyond the new terminal project, Pittsburgh International Airport has its sights on several other innovations.

It’s the first airport in the world to be solely powered by its own 23-megawatt microgrid with an on-site natural gas plant and a solar panel field that is being doubled in size. By 2027, it hopes to have more than 20,000 solar panels stretched over 20 acres of landfill property that can’t be used for any other purpose. When expanded, the solar field will produce 7.7 megawatts of power; 4.3 megawatts of that will supply energy to the regional electric grid, giving the community additional renewable energy.

In June, the Allegheny County Airport Authority, which owns and runs the airport, announced it is partnering with New Jersey-based Avina Synthetic Aviation Fuel to develop the first on-airport sustainable aviation fuel production facility in the nation. Once built, the facility is expected to produce more than 100 million gallons of sustainable aviation fuel each year to meet local and regional commercial and cargo needs at PIT and for other entities.

According to Avina’s press release, the plant — which will employ hundreds of full-time workers when it opens — will have a carbon intensity that is at least 65% lower than that of conventional jet fuel. It will use KBR’s PureSAF alcohol-to-jet technology — developed and owned by Swedish Biofuels AB and licensed globally by KBR, which is headquartered in Houston.

Since 2019, the authority also has been developing Neighborhood 91, a 195-acre advanced manufacturing campus on the western end of the airport’s 8,800 acres. The Regional Industrial Development Corp. is handling property management and business attraction for the site.

Among the businesses opening on airport property near Neighborhood 91 (named to represent an extension of Pittsburgh’s 90 neighborhoods) is Mainspring Energy, a Menlo Park, California-based company that plans to produce 1,000 low-emissions linear power generators per year. Its 292,000-square-foot facility — slated to open in 2027 — is expected to employ 600 people.

At press time, airport officials had made no decision about what would happen to the current landside terminal — whether it would be reused for other purposes or torn down.

The airport also sees expansion in its cargo operations; the manufacturing companies at Neighborhood 91, for example, can benefit from their close proximity to cargo operations that can ship their products around the world, says Sara Innamorato, Allegheny County executive.

“They’ve been incredibly creative and innovative,” she says about the authority’s vision. “They have pushed the bounds of what that authority can do, and now it’s time for Allegheny County economic development to bring the right partners around the table to make sure that we can continue to build on that success and build out that campus to really put us on the map.

“There’s a lot of opportunity that is adjacent to the new terminal that is very exciting for the growth of our entire region.”