$700M Boise Airport project, including Concourse A, has new arrival time
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Boise Airport's 3rd concourse delayed to 2030; design adds 10 more passenger gates.
- Terminal renovations and baggage handling system planned; design expected by summer 2027.
- Construction for the new concourse and terminal improvements set sto start in early 2028.
The Boise Airport’s plans to expand with a third concourse and more passenger gates has been pushed back to 2030.
The project, which has been under discussion for nearly a decade, was originally expected to get underway with construction in 2020 and completion in late 2023. But the COVID-19 pandemic delayed those plans, which have since evolved as needs changed to meet the soaring popularity in recent years of the regional air hub, Boise Airport spokesperson Shawna Samuelson told the Idaho Statesman.
The new concourse — Concourse A, to join concourses B and C — was initially intended to add five gates, but now is being designed with up to double that number, Samuelson said in an email. A new baggage handling system and central utility plant are also baked into the refined plans for the airport expansion project that’s now ballparked at up to $700 million, she said.
The airport’s baggage system is at “end of life,” Beth Sumner, the airport’s deputy director of engineering and planning, told the Airport Commission last month. “It is time for us to replace the baggage handling system.”
New concourse construction, which also would include several terminal improvements, has continued to get kicked down the road, last planned to start in 2024. Now the project’s overall design likely won’t be finished until summer 2027, with construction starting in early 2028, Sumner said during last month’s presentation.
The terminal renovations would be designed around improving circulation and accessibility, and maximizing space as airport officials plan for future growth, she said. The focus is to create a more welcoming area that offers greater “well-lit, open space,” Sumner added.
Airport gets busier, and Boise keeps projects going
Through October, the Boise Airport hosted more than 4.3 million passengers, according to the latest airport data. At that pace, the airport was about 5.5% ahead of this same time last year, when it set a new annual record of nearly 5 million passengers.
The airport offers nonstop flights to 26 destinations aboard eight different commercial airlines. Alaska Airlines is the Boise Airport’s primary carrier, flying 16 of those direct routes.
To help make room for the new concourse to the west, the airport needed to relocate an existing rental car parking lot. Construction began in February 2024 on a new rental car facility that includes a standalone building with a seven-level garage for vehicles still within walking distance of the terminal.
The rental car project is being built in two phases. The first phase is estimated to cost $110 million, and is fully funded by airport and user fees, and bonds backfilled by future collections from the same sources. The second phase, which includes a car wash and fueling stations, is undergoing design, so no final cost or timeline is set yet, Samuelson said.
Before that, the airport completed a new five-level public parking garage in August 2023. The $30 million project created 1,150 parking spaces “to accommodate existing demand and existing passenger needs,” Boise Airport Director Rebecca Hupp said at the time.
If current plans hold on the project for another concourse, construction would take two and a half years and wrap up in August 2030, “which is a little bit longer than what we were hoping,” Sumner said. That timeline could be sped up, but at higher cost, she told the Airport Commission.
Other associated terminal improvements under the plan would be scheduled to be ready along the same time frame, Sumner said. But the two large-scale capital projects are within the range of the existing budget while officials work to finalize its schematic design, Hupp told the Airport Commission last month.
“It’s really an exciting project that we’re embarking on,” she said. “We will have more detail to come on that as we continue.”
This story was originally published December 3, 2025 at 4:00 AM.
