Food court concessions ready to open at airport
New eateries include Wolfgang Puck Express and Burger King
Nearly 11 months after McDonald’s closed at Albany International Airport, its replacement is getting ready to open.
Burger King, which will occupy the former Mcdonald’s space just beyond the security checkpoint, is expected to open the week of Oct. 14, airport spokesman Doug Myers said.
Remodeling work took longer than expected. It originally was scheduled to open in July.
A Wolfgang Puck Express also is nearing completion and is expected to open the week of Nov. 12. It will occupy space next to Burger King. The two new eateries join Chick-fil-A, which opened last October, and Empire Deli, which opened in April andi sin the terminal before the security checkpoint.
The changes come as airport boardings continue to climb, up 3.9 percent in August from a year earlier. The share of available seats occupied by passengers stood at 92 percent in August, up from 90 percent in August 2018.
The Albany County Airport Authority, which met Monday, also is overseeing updates to the 21- year-old main terminal, which includes the ticketing and bag gage areas, as well as the Band C concourses, and to the 40- year- old A concourse.
Boarding bridges B5, B7, B8 and C3 have been replaced, while A5 and B10 are slated to be rebuilt in fiscal year 2020. New escalators also are being installed and work continues on the five-level parking garage, which will have room for 1,000 vehicles.
The terminal originally was designed to handle 1.5 million
passenger boardings a year.
In the most recent 12- month period, it handled 1.508 million passenger boardings, up 4.1 percent from the previous 12- month period.
New bathrooms, flooring, way-finding signs, and various infrastructure improvements, from heating and air conditioning to roofs and plumbing, are also part of the improvements.
A new exit from the North way is intended to improve connections to the airport, and is expected to open in late December. The improvement sat the airport, meanwhile, are expected to be completed by next March.
At its meeting Monday, the airport authority also met Sari O’connor, executive director of the Albany Police and Fire Foundation and along time supporter of Capital Region nonprofits, who has been nominated to fill the airport board seat left vacant by the departing Patricia Riley.
O’connor, who was nominated by Albany County Executive Dan Mccoy, still must be approved by the full County Legislature.