Arizona’s Sky Harbor International Airport is undergoing renovations starting this year. Sky Harbor's last long-range plan was in 2010, and the Federal Aviation Administration requires these plans to be updated about every 7 to 10 years.
The renovations plan to complete the terminal 3 and terminal 4 concourses, possibly trenching the railroad tracks to make more room to the North and making more room for personal aircraft.
"There are lots of pieces of business that happen at the airport whether its cargo or general aviation, which is people's business aircraft, the Air National Guard and just general airport maintenance. And all of these things need a place amongst the terminals and the runways and taxiways. And some of these pieces of business need more room than perhaps they did 25 years ago. And so we need to make improvements so we have flexibility," says Deborah Ostreicher, the Assistant Director of Aviation for Sky Harbor.
Currently, the airport sees about 45 million passengers annually, but with the projected growth of Phoenix, it is expected the airport will serve double this amount by the time the project is finished.
It’s slotted at a 20-year project costing $5.7 billion. Because airports are not allowed to use taxpayer money for projects like this, Ostreicher says, the renovations will be paid solely with airport revenue.