New terminals underway in New York, Atlanta and Salt Lake City show how carriers are willing to make major investments in their brands.
Excerpted from Passenger Terminal World:
In July 2017 investment banking firm Goldman Sachs exited a deal to co-finance a $4 billion project to redevelop Terminals C and D at New York’s LaGuardia Airport. The move came after Delta Air Lines, its financial partner in the project, opted to pay for the redevelopment itself “following a period of fiscal review.”
The LaGuardia refurb follows two other airport improvement projects where Delta has a financial stake: a $3.6 billion redevelopment at Salt Lake City International and a $6 billion expansion of the domestic terminal at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson. It’s unclear how much Delta is investing in these two airport projects, though it will probably be significantly less than the LaGuardia investment.
HOK is involved with redevelopment projects at all three of the U.S. airports (although the company is not undertaking the Delta portion of the work at LaGuardia). According to Matt Needham, HOK’s regional leader of aviation and transportation, Delta’s willingness to put up its own money to fund these improvements is part of a growing recognition among airlines that airports “are now an extension of their brand.”