The tunnel built long ago helped the airport to develop a combination of enough old and new airline gates available through various construction phases to allow air operations to continue uninterrupted. That is scheduled for a later, second phase of construction because the current Concourse D used by Delta Air Lines would need to be demolished first.

The tunnel cost about $8 million, officials say, but would cost many times that now.įor example, just the construction of facilities to connect the tunnel to the new concourses - including digging, concrete pours and installation of escalators, stairs and utilities - is now costing more than $19 million.Įventually, the renovated airport also will have another main, central tunnel to connect the parallel concourses. Some federal funding for it was also available then. Rather than coming in later and tearing all that up again, they built the tunnel at that time,” Williams said. It was built in 2004, after 1990s master plans envisioned airport renovation - but construction was still a decade away.Īt that time, the airport “was doing some construction on the airfield. The tunnel will connect two new parallel concourses at the airport, passing beneath an airplane taxiway. “It showed some amazing foresight by past leaders,” Airport Director Bill Wyatt has said about that tunnel, adding that it saved tens of millions of dollars and allowed moving around puzzle pieces to make the overall project possible at the same time that air operations continue.

2018 salt lake city airport road map