Few US cities need their airports renovated more desperately than New York does. Its three primary airports have terminal facilities that may have been world-class decades ago, but are congested messes today. Fortunately the powers that be got the memo and are using this decade to get JFK, Newark, and LaGuardia back into shape. The LaGuardia work is well underway, with large parts of a shiny new terminal B already open. And recently, a project at JFK hit a major milestone.
An aerial rendered view of the planned New Terminal One – Photo: PANYNJ
A consortium of airlines, funding partners, project management companies, and other partners are breaking ground this month on JFK’s New Terminal One (NTO). It will cover the footprint of the current terminal one (a smattering of mostly international airlines), Delta’s terminal two, and the footprint of the demolished terminal three. For an overview of the overall planned terminal changes at JFK this CrankyFlier story from our friend Brett does a great job.
The press release lists AirFrance/KLM, LOT, and Etihad as anchor airlines for the new terminal. We’d have thought JFK’s major redevelopment could allow alliance partners to colocate. But AF/KLM’s major US partner is Delta over in terminal four, Etihad has a smattering of codeshare partners all over the place, and LOT is in the Star Alliance. So NTO may work like the current terminal one, as a grab-bag of miscellaneous airlines.
Inside the New Terminal One headhouse – Photo: PANYNJ
As for the terminal design, it will have a large headhouse and two piers with a total of 23 gates. Presumably most gates will be designed for long-haul aircraft. From the renderings it looks fresh, spacious, and *really* into letting you know that you’re in NYC.
The project will break ground this summer, with the first phase planned to open in 2026 and completion slated for 2030. So yes, you’ll have a while to wait before you can walk through the New Terminal One yourself. And there will probably be plenty of construction-related hassles for passengers passing through terminals one and two between now and then. For now, here’s some cool renderings of the final product.
Most of our AirlineReporting time and energy goes to this website and Twitter, but we also have a YouTube channel that we don’t want you to forget about. Over there we have some of our favorite window seat views, airport highlights, and other clips saved for your viewing pleasure. We’ve dabbled in some short video trip reports, like on JetBlue Mint and Finnair’s long-haul business class. There’s also some on-scene coverage of major airport infrastructure highlights, like Sea-Tac’s over-taxiway skywalk getting hoisted into place.
Finnair began service from Helsinki to Seattle on June 2, 2022
Seattle-Tacoma International Airport added its 8th new international carrier since the pandemic began in 2020, as Finnair started service from Helsinki on June 2.
Finnair’s A330 received the traditional water cannon salute from the SEA fire department on arrival
Finnair will operate the 9.5-hour flights three times per week on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays using an A330. The inbound flight will be numbered AY033, and the return flight to Helsinki will be AY034.
Finnair is also part of the oneworld alliance, allowing connections either onward from Seattle or Helsinki via the local partner airlines, including Seattle’s own Alaska Airlines.
It’s arguably the most iconic livery on the most iconic aircraft in service. It’s blue-and-white livery is instantly identifiable to both AvGeeks and those who view planes as simply flying buses.
Officially designated the VC-25 by the U.S. Air Force, two heavily-modified Boeing 747-200s have been in service since 1990.
Air Force One moments from landing at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport
By now, most AvGeeks know that any aircraft can be designated as Air Force One – the callsign is only active if the president is on board. Thus the modified 757s (officially C-32As) can also carry the callsign when the president is aboard.
The Seattle area sees C-32As fairly regularly, as high-ranking officials other than the president often visit the region, such as the vice president. The VC-25 hasn’t been in these parts since 2018, and we last wrote about a visit here in 2015, so we were due for an update.
Looking out the nose of a B-29 over Seattle – Photo: Jeremy Dwyer-Lindgren
Typically we cover airlines and airliners here at AirlineReporter, but occasionally an opportunity in the non-airline[r] worlds pops up that we just can’t pass on.
So when the Museum of Flight here at our Seattle HQ announced that Doc, one of only two airworthy Boeing B-29 bombers, was planning to visit in mid-May, we jumped at the chance to see her up close. Even better, we got to take a short ride around Seattle.
The airplane arrived earlier this week (May 17). Its Star Wars-esque nose, four engines, and incredibly shiny fuselage made it easy to spot on the horizon. The pilots eased the bird onto the runway and taxied down to the Museum of Flight ramp as a crowd of onlookers gathered to watch.
While the B-29 was originally produced in Seattle, Doc is not a native Pacific Northwesterner. It was one of 1,644 B-29s built at Boeing’s Wichita plant, in Kansas, and rolled off the line in March of 1945. It never saw combat, and went on serve in radar calibration and target-towing until it was decommissioned in 1956.
Doc, one of two airworthy Boeing B-29 bombers left in the world, rests after a media flight at Boeing Field in Seattle on May 17, 2022
It continued its service to the United States Air Force even after retirement, but instead of towing targets, it became one. The airplane spent decades soaking in the desert sun, along with the occasional bomb or bullet, on an Air Force bombing range near China Lake, California before being discovered in 1987. Restoration didn’t begin for another decade, in 1998, following a considerable amount of paperwork to pry the plane loose from the US government. Eighteen years and over 450,000 volunteer hours after that, the restoration was complete, and Doc once again took flight in 2016.
Its Seattle visit is the first for Doc, and the first B-29 visit to the area in almost eight years.
