Let’s fly away. Next year. Maybe?

Aerial renderting of the new Terminal One now under construction at Newark Liberty International. – GRIMSHAW ARCHITECTS

Top officials at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey are confident the new $2.7 billion Terminal One is set to partially open in late 2021, even as the global pandemic grounds air travel and deals major blows to the airport’s biggest tenant, United Airlines.

The bistate agency is banking on the pandemic having slowed down enough by then – and that a vaccine or treatment for COVID-19 will be widely available – to bolster consumers’ confidence that they can fly safely. If that happens, the industry could begin the long climb back to 2019 levels of travel volume and revenue generation.

The 33-gate structure will replace the aging Terminal A at Newark Liberty International Airport, which opened in 1973 alongside the airport’s Terminal B. Phase one of the terminal reopening is slated for the fourth quarter of 2021, and the entire facility will come online over the next year.

O’Toole

Construction will reach 60 percent completion this fall, before the colder months set in, so that workers are protected from the harsh elements, said Kevin O’Toole, a former Republican state senator and chair of the bi-state agency. The agency broke ground on the structure in October 2018.

“I assume once we open this place will be buzzing,” O’Toole told NJBIZ during a July 27 tour of the Terminal One site conducted amid the second full week of a summer heat wave.

The global pandemic has ravaged the state and national economy, hitting air travel particularly hard. Port Authority officials reported in June that between April of 2019 and 2020, passenger volumes at Newark airport, and at New York’s John F. Kennedy and LaGuardia airports had fallen a combined 98 percent.

The agency also said PATH rail ridership had cratered by 97 percent, while traffic at the agency’s bridges and tunnels tumbled 61 percent, triggering substantial losses in ticket and toll revenue respectively. Port Authority officials have pleaded with Congress for $3 billion in federal COVID-19 relief to make up for the expected losses over the next 24 months. The agency has thus far avoided layoffs and furloughs, O’Toole said on July 27.

“We have reduced the operating footprint,” said Port Authority Executive Director Rick Cotton, who earlier this year tested positive for COVID-19, during the terminal tour. Entire stretches of terminals have been closed due to reduced demand. “You wind up where you concentrate and focus the travelers on particular areas of the airport,” Cotton added.

But Port Authority officials have repeatedly warned that without the $3 billion, they could have to make deep cuts to some of their long-term projects, including Terminal One, a new AirTrain to replace Newark Airport’s aging monorail, upgrades and restoration on the George Washington Bridge, the implementation of cashless tolling at the Hudson River crossings, and replacement of the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan.

A rendering of the Terminal One interior departure hall. – GRIMSHAW ARCHITECTS

Meanwhile United, which accounts for more than 80 percent of the flights passing through Newark airport, has said it plans to cut up to half its staff around Oct. 1, or around 36,000 personnel, as flight bookings tumble.

That includes 15,000 flight attendants, 11,000 customer service and gate agents, 5,550 maintenance workers and 2,250 pilots. The $5 billion in federal aid under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act comes with a requirement that lay-offs not happen until Oct. 1.

The Chicago-based carrier shed $1.6 billion during the second quarter of 2020 while the third quarter, between July and September, will see flight capacity plummet 65 percent compared to last year.

As the pandemic seemed to slow down in June and travelers began to show more comfort with flying, United said it would add 25,000 more flights effective August.

Whether those plans can come to fruition remain up in the air, with United in July citing “reduced demand to destinations experiencing increases in COVID-19 cases and/or new quarantine requirements or other restrictions on travel.”

Indeed, travelers into the tri-state area of Connecticut, New Jersey and New York from one of 34 “COVID-19 hotspot” states – as well as Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C. – are urged to self-quarantine for 14 days.

Air travelers coming into New York’s airports are required to hand over contact information upon landing to local health officials known as contact tracers, who are tasked with tracking down and isolating potential new cases before they erupt into outbreaks.

Failure to comply would mean a $2,000 fine on the New York side; in New Jersey, cooperation with contact tracers at Newark airport is strictly voluntary, albeit strongly encouraged.

In the past two months, air travel has picked up by 15 percent, Cotton said. But the travel restrictions by Murphy and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo have cut into that progress by roughly 1 percent a week.

Improved experience

At the new terminal, travelers will handle their airline check-ins on the top floor, which will be illuminated by natural light via windows and skylights. Many more of the kiosks would be self-service, and plexiglass features would be installed in between stations in anticipation of continued physical distancing requirements.

Travelers would go through the Transportation Security Administration checkpoints before descending via escalators to the central part of the terminal, where the different wings intersect.

Concessions and restaurants will have a “Jersey flair,” said Huntley Lawrence, aviation director at the Port Authority. “So there are going to be a lot of New Jersey-themed restaurants and locations.”

With the drop in air travel due to the pandemic, airport officials will have greater flexibility with the gates they assign flights to, according to Lawrence.

The largest of the three wings – the North Wing – will have a panoramic view of Newark Airport, and behind it, the Manhattan skyline.

The idea, according to Cotton, “is that each of the airports should not be cookie cutter but have local options so people have a sense of place when they arrive.”