A skeleton of steel beams is growing by the day as construction crews race to keep up with explosive passenger growth at Asheville Regional Airport.
A massive airport expansion plan has been taking place behind the scenes for five years. Now it’s quickly coming into clear, public view, as a two-story, steel frame outlines the future north concourse and a frenzy of other construction is impossible to ignore.
“Right now, we do need to focus on how we manage providing a positive experience for the sheer number of travelers coming through while we are tearing down and building up. That’s a challenge, as you can imagine,” Tina Kinsey, vice president of marketing, public relations and air service development, told 828newsNOW on Monday.
The Asheville area’s growing popularity as a destination has been a blessing and a challenge, she said.
“If you look at some of our most recent years’ year-over-year passenger growth, it’s extraordinary,” she said. “It’s not ordinary, projectable growth.”
Passenger numbers have been soaring in recent years, according to the latest official figures released in late January.
Asheville Regional Airport served 2,246,411 passengers in calendar year 2023. That represented a 22 percent increase over the 1,838,793 served in 2022, and was nearly double the number of passengers served in 2018, 1,134,568.
Kinsey, who has worked at Asheville’s airport the past 14 years, said it has been exciting to see the growth and the race to expand.
“It’s astounding we continue to see more and more travelers,” she said. “The months that used to be our slow months… We don’t call anything our slow month anymore.”
The airport has been operating out of seven gates for many years. Plans call for seven gates in the new north concourse to open in the summer of 2025, allowing for work on the south concourse. By early 2027, the expanded airport is expected to be fully open with 12 gates, plus additional room to expand.
The construction, managed by contractor Hensel Phelps, has hit several milestones since late last year. In November, demolition of the old north concourse was completed, clearing the way for the first vertical steel beams to be placed in January.
In February, the airport celebrated a massive concrete pour on the west side of the airport property, marking where a new control tower is being built. It will replace a 63-year-old tower now attached to the old terminal building.
“It wasn’t built for the technology we have now,” and it clears space for the expanded airport, Kinsey said.