I flew from Miami to DFW last week. Coming in from the south-east we had to fly north past the airport so that we could land from the north.
This gave me the opportunity to have an overview of the terminals and the new construction that is happening at DFW.
This first picture is a wide shot of most of the airport showing 6 of the 7 runways (runway 7 is off screen to the right of the lower runway.)
From the top left the runways are 31L/13R, 36L/18R, 36R/18L, 35L/17R, 35C/17C, 35R/17L, 31R/13L.
The 6 terminals are from the left, on this side Terminals E, C and A. On the other side are the new Terminal F, D and B.
There are large long term parking areas to the north and south of the terminals and then off screen to the left is the car rental center.
Here are close ups of each set of terminals.
Terminal F and E.
This is terminal F and terminal E. Terminal F is the newest terminal that they are busy completing. It is a different shape to the other terminals and it will open in 2027 with 15 gates and eventually have 31 gates when completed.
The 2 red x’s mark either of the spots where the large terminal F garage will be constructed.
You can see terminal E at the bottom of the screen has a satellite area where there are 10 extra gates for smaller planes, very efficient.
Terminal C and D.
Terminal D on the far side is the main international terminal for the bigger planes, it also includes a Hyatt hotel.
Terminal C closest to us is having most of the garage area rebuilt and is having a Pier C extension done to the terminal.
You can see a dark square shape jutting out from terminal C on the bottom left. When completed Pier C will have rebuilt 5 gates and added 4 more gates.
Like La Guardia, Terminal C is an older style building, originally constructed when the airport opened in the mid 70’s.
The airport has been upgrading terminal C over the past few years and this should complete it and make it a wonderful, modern terminal.
Here is a closeup of Terminal C taken about a month ago.The large glass walls will be a welcome delight for lighting as well as for airplane sighting.
This is the left side as looking at the first picture of Terminal C.
This is from the runway side, a nice wide addition to the terminal. In the background you can see 2 cranes that are at work on the garage area.
Terminal A and B.
Terminal A which is closest here is also getting an expansion. The A Pier as they are calling it will rebuild 5 gates and add 5 extra gates.
You can see it jut out to the right of terminal A
This is a picture from 2 weeks ago of the Pier extension to Terminal A. Similar to the extension to Terminal C it has large windows too.
Other construction aspects.
There is also road access construction happening at the moment. They are adding access roads to some terminals so you have direct access from the north and south instead of the curly loop roads you have to use now.
DFW was a very well designed airport when it was constructed in the 70’s. The fact that there are 2 x 3 lane roads through the center of the airport that do not slow down terminal access was a master stroke. So many airports in the US have a single road that runs past all the terminals that is always slow.
There is also construction of an Electric Central Utility Plant. 2.7 Billion dollars is being spent on these terminal upgrades. If you include the new terminal F a total of about $9 Billion will have been spent on all the upgrades.
DFW airport turns 50 this year and this is a great time to be upgrading so the airport can handle growing passenger and flight numbers for the far future.
