What Goes into Redesigning an Entire Airport? We Went Behind the Scenes at Newark to See the Plan for Its Transformation

As many as 50 million passengers passed through Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) last year, rushing through the New Jersey airport’s terminals on their way to destinations near and far. But tucked into a back corner of the airport complex is a bank of unassuming offices where a team is playing a complicated game of Tetris, figuring out how to keep one of the country’s busiest airports functioning while simultaneously planning a massive overhaul to bring the tired infrastructure into the 21st century.

As part of its plan, first announced in October, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is working to completely replace Terminal B and the existing AirTrain while also enhancing Terminal C. All of which builds on the progress started with the airport’s new Terminal A, which opened in January 2023. But a plan that big comes with a lot of moving parts. 

“We’re trying to build a new terminal and create airspace and reconfigure all the roadways,” Ralph D’Apuzzo, the senior program director for aviation of the Newark redevelopment, told Travel + Leisure during a recent sit-down interview. ”What we’re going to do is build this in pieces … We’ve got to find ways of carving out areas that we could work as we need, which is going to be very, very challenging.”

The truth is modernizing Newark isn’t a want, it’s a need. In fact, at a certain point, Newark won’t be able to handle the traffic growth it’s seeing without a major overhaul, said Aidan O’Donnell, the general manager of New Jersey airports at the Port Authority.

“It’s functionally deficient. We’re bursting at the seams … And the demand is really there,” O’Donnell told T+L, adding, “We’re hurling toward a capacity constraint and a capacity limitation, and that’s something that we want to try to get ahead of.”

This isn’t the first major airport overhaul for the Port Authority — New York’s LaGuardia Airport (LGA) famously underwent a major transformation and John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) is in the midst of one now. And lessons have been learned.

“I think vehicular traffic was probably the takeaway number one, two, and three coming out of LaGuardia,” O’Donnell said. “What it caused us to do was make sure we have very robust traffic mitigations developed and tested before the construction actually started.”

In practice, that means working with the police department to understand where they need to add resources, pre-staging tow trucks in case someone breaks down, and understanding flight schedules to know when the airport is at its most crowded.

Ultimately, Port Authority Executive Director Rick Cotton told T+L the redevelopment “is about more than just building new terminals; it’s about reshaping the entire travel experience.” 

“We’re not just building for today — we’re laying the foundation for infrastructure that will ably serve and inspire travelers well into the future,” Cotton added.

This is a breakdown of the major projects at Newark, and what travelers need to know about each.

Terminal B

One of the oldest terminals in the airport, Terminal B was first commissioned in the early 1970s, and while it’s had some facelifts over the years, its age shows. It’s visible in the three smaller, independently-functioning Transportation Security Administration (TSA) checkpoints — inefficient and designed before modern TSA standards, as O’Donnell put it. And it shows in the limited check-in kiosks and in the scant baggage belts. 

However, it’s a long process to bring the busy terminal into this century. First, there’s the program planning, which the Port Authority is starting now and expects to take up to two years — but can take longer. Only then can construction finally begin.

D’Apuzzo said the Port Authority is looking at 10 years as a timeline to replace Terminal B and the airport roadways.

“So once we develop a plan, what we typically do as a team is really put on our contractor hat and think about it from a contractor [perspective] and figure out ‘how would I go about building it in this environment,’” D’Apuzzo said. “We look at it through the eyes of our customer, we look at it through the eyes of a contractor, and we start phasing each part of the project and look at: how do we develop a rule book that everyone is comfortable with? When are we going to close roadways? When are we going to conduct certain types of work in an area? What hours of operation are we going to expect?

 “And we figure out mitigations that are acceptable from a customer experience standpoint for a world class airport,” he added.

When all is said and done, Terminal B will reflect the same modernizations of the new Terminal A. There will be more gates, and more flexible gates to accommodate larger aircraft, a more centralized airport security checkpoint, and ultimately, less aircraft gridlock.

AirTrain

But first thing’s first: before Terminal B can become a reality, Newark first has to address its underwhelming AirTrain system. The outdated system is a relic from the 1990s and is over capacity and not expandable. So the plan is to fully replace it.

“The AirTrain kind of weaves through all of these elements and makes those connections, but it needs to be re-configured in order to be able to accommodate those new terminal locations,” D’Apuzzo said. 

But everything overlaps.

“We can’t close things down until we build new, but we have to build after we get the [current] AirTrain decommissioned,” D’Apuzzo added. “We think we can do a lot of things to start, like relocate the central heating and refrigeration plant, we could start on the roadways that need to be built… we can build sections of [the new terminal] that are in the parking areas… You can do it in pieces, but it has to be phased carefully so that we keep things going.”

Terminal C

Terminal C is part of the long-term plan at Newark. While not necessarily the black sheep of the airport thanks to a refresh about 20 years ago, it could nonetheless use some updates. But a whole new Terminal C is probably about 20 years off. 

In the meantime, D’Apuzzo said enhancing the experience at Terminal C is essential so “we can extend its life.”

Those enhancements may include things like removing a connector to allow for expanded, larger gates.  

“There’s elements we’re building into B that [we] could potentially leverage modifying C,” D’Apuzzo said.