As the busiest airport in the US by international arrivals, JFK in New York is considered the gateway to America. Yet foreigners would be forgiven for expecting a better welcome from the world’s biggest economy. Its five poorly-connected terminals are confusingly numbered one to eight (a remnant of demolitions over the past decade) and some of them were built as long ago as 1962. In last year’s Skytrax ranking of the world’s top airports, travellers placed JFK a lowly 88th. 

Since 2017, plans have been underway to fix this via a $19bn overhaul, which New York state governor Kathy Hochul has said will make JFK “an airport worthy of New York”. 

The redevelopment consists of five separate projects which span the sprawling 21 sq km site. They are two new terminals and two terminal upgrades, all being developed and financed by separate private sector consortia, and a new road network being handled by the government-owned Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.  

Among these projects, the most transformative is the $9.5bn New Terminal One (NTO), a state-of-the-art, international-only terminal with 23 gates that will replace today’s terminals 1, 2 and 3. 

“JFK is the front door to the US… It commands the importance of a world-class international airport,” says Gerrard Bushell, CEO of NTO, which is responsible for constructing and operating the new terminal under a lease running until 2060.

NTO is backed by a consortium of fou investors: Madrid-headquartered Ferrovial Airports, and JLC Infrastructure, Ullico and Carlyle Group which are based in the US. 

Their $9.5bn capital commitment is the largest private investment ever committed to a US airport terminal and the country’s biggest single-asset financing ever. It broke ground in September 2022 after delays brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic. 

“We were [working on] an international-only terminal when international borders were shut down,” notes Mr Bushell. A revised strategy and negotiations with the Port Authority led to a 10-year lease extension to help cover pandemic-related costs, and a decision to stagger the opening of gates from 2026 to 2030.

An economic engine

New York has attracted more FDI projects and capital expenditure than any other US city over the past 20 years, according to fDi Markets. 

Mr Bushell says NTO is “very important” to sustaining the city’s standing as a leading commercial hub. “The relevance of cities to a global economy has to be reflected in its airports,” he says, adding that the movement of people, goods, ideas and knowledge is the way to stay connected to the global community. 

Yet the economic benefits of a world-class air hub extend beyond those created by travel. “Airports generally are economic engines, but particularly so in New York where the demand for air travel is [among] the biggest in the US [which] is one of the biggest aviation markets in the world,” says Ferrovial Airports CEO Luke Bugeja. 

The entire $19bn redevelopment will create more than 15,000 direct and indirect jobs. Donovan Richards, president of the borough of Queens, recently stated the project has already generated $800m in local business contracts and nearly $2bn in contracts for minority and women-owned business enterprises. 

The redevelopment could offer a prototype for other projects aimed at serving the public. Unlike many other airports, each JFK terminal will have different operators and investors, creating competition that should lift the airport’s overall standards. The $19bn price tag also makes it the biggest public private partnership (PPP) to date in US infrastructure, which successive governments have pledged to improve. Marlon Smith, managing partner at JLC, says the mix of partners behind NTO “could be the PPP model for the future”.

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This article first appeared in the December 2023/January 2024 print edition of fDi Intelligence