Airport’s ‘A’ lister
Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood Terminal 1 expansion complete
Expanded Terminal 1’s Concourse A opens at Lauderdale airport.
Travelers are now arriving and departing through the new Con course A inside Terminal 1 at Fort Lauderdale-International Airport.
On Wednesday, the $200 million facility officially opened to passenger traffic following several months of construction, the airport announced on its Twitter account @FLLFlyer.
“FLL and @SouthwestAir open for business and welcomes first customers to Terminal 1, Concourse A,” a 9:33 a.m. post said.
Concourse A — part of a $333 million modernization and expansion project nearing completion in Terminal 1— had been projected to open June 30. The facility features five new gates, more restaurant and shopping options and a Customs and Border Protection inspection station.
A Southwest Airlines flight from Havana was among the first to arrive with travelers at the new concourse.
Con course A will primarily serve Southwest travelers flying aboard a slew of newly launched and soonto-international flights this year. It will connect to the airline’s existing Concourses B and C.
It’s the second new concourse to open at the Fort Lauderdale airport in recent years. In 2015, Concourse G in Terminal 4 became its first new concourse in more than a decade following Concourse B, which opened in 2003.
Concourse A’s new “swing” gates are configured to handle both international and domestic flights, providing more flexibility for the airport to grow routes in both areas
In November, Southwest plans to add daily nonstop service from Fort Lauderdale to Providenciales, Turks & Caicos; San Jose, Costa Rica, and Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. In June, it also added new service to Montego Bay, Jamaica; Belize City, Belize; Cancun, Mexico, and Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands.
To help showcase its new international routes from Fort Lauderdale, Southwest recently commissioned local artist Ruben Ubiera to create a destinations mural in the city’s FAT Village arts district, which it unveiled last month
Southwest is also beefing up domestic flights from Fort Lauderdale. Last month it resumed nonstop service to Orlando and began new service to Wash--