John F. Kennedy International Airport International Arrivals Building, Terminal 4 – Jamaica, NY
In 1957, SOM designed the former International Arrivals Building for New York’s Idlewild Airport (now the John F. Kennedy International Airport.) By the mid-1990s, the facility had become cramped and outdated. SOM led a revitalization effort to create a spacious new building that could meet the needs of modern air travel. The resulting terminal – a three-level facility able to serve 7 million passengers yearly – reasserted JFK’s status as the preeminent gateway to North America. Considered at the time of its completion to be a model terminal for the 21 st century, the building embraces efficiency and functionality as exciting elements of the travel experience. The steel-and-glass-span building recalls the tradition of great civic transportation hubs. A sweeping roof with linear skylights admits daylight, saving a considerable amount of energy. The addition of two-level roadways (one for pick-ups, one for drop offs) facilitates a smooth flow of traffic outside the building. Inside, a clear layout and improved signage enable passengers to easily navigate the vast terminal.
Origins John F. Kennedy International Airport is the primary international airport serving New York City. It is the busiest international air passenger gateway into North America, the 22nd-busiest airport in the world, the sixthbusiest airport in the United States, and the busiest airport in the New York airport system; it handled just over 59 million passengers in 2017. More than ninety airlines operate from the airport, with nonstop or direct flights to destinations in all six inhabited continents. JFK is located in the Jamaica neighborhood of Queens in New York City, 16 miles southeast of Midtown Manhattan. The airport features six passenger terminals and four runways. It serves as a hub for both American Airlines and Delta Air Lines, and it is the primary operating base for JetBlue. JFK was also formerly a hub for Pan Am, TWA, Eastern, National, and Tower Air. The facility opened in 1948 as New York International Airport and was commonly known as Idlewild Airport. Following John F. Kennedy's assassination in 1963, the airport was renamed John F. Kennedy International Airport as a tribute to the 35th President.
TWA Trans World Airlines opened the TWA Flight Center in 1962, designed by Eero Saarinen with a distinctive winged-bird shape. With the demise of TWA in 2001, the terminal remained vacant until 2005 when JetBlue Airways and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ) financed the construction of a new 26-gate terminal partly encircling the Saarinen building. Called Terminal 5(Now T5), the new terminal opened October 22, 2008. T5 is connected to the Saarinen central building through the original passenger departure-arrival tubes that connected the building to the outlying gates. The Port Authority is working on restorations to the remaining original Saarinen terminal, also known as the head house.
Terminal 4 Terminal 4, developed by LCOR, Inc., is managed by JFK International Air Terminal (IAT) LLC, a subsidiary of the Schiphol Group. This terminal serves as a major international hub for Delta Air Lines (and domestic flights to Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle-Tacoma) and was the first one in the United States to be managed by a foreign airport operator. Terminal 4 is the major gateway for international arrivals at JFK. Opened in 2001 and designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, the 1,500,000-square-foot terminal was built at a cost of $1.4 billion and replaced JFK's old International Arrivals Building or simply IAB, which opened in 1957. The terminal was expanded in the late 2000s and early 2010s. The first phase of Delta's $1.4 billion project at the airport — which includes nine new international gates, additional baggage space, a centralized security checkpoint (moving two checkpoints into one location just after check-in), and customs and border-security facilities—was completed on May 24, 2013.
Port Authority The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey leased the Idlewild property from the City of New York in 1947 and maintains this lease today. The first flight from Idlewild was on July 1, 1948; the opening ceremony was attended by then U.S. President Harry S. Truman. The Port Authority canceled foreign airlines' permits to use LaGuardia, forcing them to move to Idlewild during the next couple of years. Idlewild opened with six runways and a seventh under construction. The Port of New York Authority originally planned a single 55-gate terminal, but the major airlines did not agree with this plan, arguing that the terminal would be far too small for future traffic. Architect Wallace Harrison then designed a plan for each major airline at the airport to be given its own space to develop its own terminal. This scheme made construction more practical, made terminals more navigable, and introduced incentives for airlines to compete with each other for the best design. The revised plan met airline approval in 1955, with seven terminals initially planned. Five terminals were for individual airlines, one was for three airlines, and one was for international arrivals.
The airport had to be modified in the late 1960s to accommodate the Boeing 747's weight. The International Arrivals Building, or IAB, was the first new terminal at the airport, opening in December 1957. The building was designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. The terminal stretched nearly 2,300 feet and was parallel to runway 7R. The terminal had "finger" piers at right-angles to the main building allowing more aircraft to park, an innovation at the time. The building was expanded in 1970 to accommodate jetways. However, by the 1990s the overcrowded building was showing its age and it did not provide adequate space for security checkpoints. It was demolished in 2000 and replaced with Terminal 4.
AirTrain Construction of the AirTrain JFK rapid-transit system began in 1998, after decades of planning for a direct rail link to the airport. Although the system was originally scheduled to open in 2002, it opened on December 17, 2003 after delays caused by construction and a fatal crash. The rail network links each airport terminal to the New York City Subway and the Long Island Rail Road at Howard Beach and Jamaica. As Terminal 4 was built during the construction of the AirTrain, the AirTrain station was built inside the terminal building. Other AirTrain stations are built across from terminal buildings. Delta Air Lines has also moved much of its operations to T4, as it expands operations beyond T2, with T3 now closed. Concourse A serves as the stopping location for Asian and some European airlines, whereas Concourse B is made up of Delta flights, and a number of Asian and some European airlines.