Travellers passing through New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport will need to hold off a little longer before seeing its biggest upgrade. The New Terminal One, a $9.5 billion project billed as the largest public-private partnership in the United States, has pushed its opening from 2026 to the first quarter of 2027.
The new facility is far more than a facelift for the old Terminal 1. It will eventually cover 2.6 million square feet and rise on land that once housed the existing Terminal 1 plus the former Terminals 2 and 3. When finished, it will be JFK's largest terminal, with 23 gates — 22 of them built for widebody aircraft, which makes it the future home of most long-haul international departures from the airport.
The first phase opening in 2027 will offer 13 gates plus one temporary gate. Once that section is running, the current Terminal 1 will be demolished to make room for a second phase adding nine more gates. The operator says the extra time is going into testing systems and getting airline and retail partners ready, with the stated goal of delivering a new customer experience standard from opening day.
The scale of the retail and lounge offering is a big part of the pitch: more than 300,000 square feet of shops, dining and lounges, six lounges in total including a major new Air France one, and a rooftop spread of 13,000 solar panels that will form New York City's largest solar array. The airline roster skews heavily international — Air France, KLM, Etihad, Turkish Airlines, EVA Air, LOT Polish, Air New Zealand, Air China and Philippine Airlines are all listed as partners.
The delay doesn't happen in a vacuum. JFK is in the middle of a wholesale rebuild: a new Terminal 6 is also under construction, expected to house JetBlue, United and several Star Alliance carriers, while other terminals get expansions of their own. The New Terminal One project alone is expected to generate roughly 10,000 jobs, including 6,000 union construction roles.
For anyone flying internationally out of New York, this matters in two ways. Short term, expect a few more months of the current — often crowded and dated — Terminal 1 before the new building takes over. Longer term, once both phases are complete, connections, lounges and dining on JFK's south side should improve dramatically, and the extra widebody gates could open the door for more airlines and routes. If your trip falls in 2026, it's worth double-checking which terminal your flight uses, since the switchover will shuffle carriers around the airport.
The most realistic reading of the announcement: if all remaining construction and testing go to plan, the first passengers will walk through in early 2027. Anyone who has followed JFK's stop-start redevelopment history will know to take even that with a pinch of salt, but the project itself appears firmly on track.