Austin-Bergstrom Opens Concourse B and Its Passenger Tunnel

Construction research — October 24, 2026

Austin’s Concourse B and tunnel are still listed in design; work on separate taxiways and reliever Concourse M does not prove this concourse has begun. Native price records the published US$1.031 billion preconstruction/construction authorization, excluding the separate US$72 million design authorization, without presenting their sum as a source-quoted all-in total. Opening is only early 2030s; the retained 2030 anchor is explicitly provisional and not a supported exact year/day.

• Journey With AUS — Expansion & Development Program: $1.031 billion^[1]

Earlier pin evidence

• Concourse B & Tunnel is a new 26-gate midfield concourse at Austin-Bergstrom, built ‘to meet the airport’s long-term passenger activity level demand’ under the Journey With AUS expansion programme^[1]
• Southwest Airlines is the anchor tenant with 18 gates, United Airlines takes 5, and 3 gates are left for domestic common use^[1]
• The project includes a new subgrade tunnel connecting the Barbara Jordan Terminal to Concourse B, with a passenger conveyance system ‘to assist with passenger movement and capacity for a future Automated People Mover (passenger train) corridor’, and the tunnel can be extended to a future Concourse C^[1]
• Scope also covers passenger and tenant spaces, passenger boarding bridges, baggage handling system expansion, apron support and back-of-house spaces, baggage makeup and tug areas, aircraft apron expansion, underground utilities and an in-pavement hydrant fuelling system^[1]
• The source gives the opening only as ‘estimated to open in the early 2030s’, with the project still in the design phase — it does not name a day or a year, so the pin’s 2030 date is more precise than the source supports^[1]
• Austin City Council authorized $72 million for engineering and architectural services and $1.031 billion for pre-construction and construction services; renderings are pre-design conceptual and ‘final design specifications and features subject to change’^[1]
• The Integrated Baggage Handling System spanning from the new Arrivals & Departures Hall to Concourse B & Tunnel is about five miles of conveyor belts, interfacing with the existing Outbound Baggage Handling System that screens 4,000 bags an hour; it is in design and ‘planned to open at the same time as the Concourse B & Tunnel and the New Arrivals & Departures Hall’, budgeted at approximately $300 million^[1]
• That Arrivals & Departures Hall, also estimated to open in the early 2030s, is authorized at $45 million for engineering and architectural services plus $820 million for pre-construction and construction — the $865 million the pin cites is that pair of figures combined, not a single number the source states^[1]
• Two new concrete parallel midfield taxiways are being built specifically to make Concourse B possible — two miles of taxiway plus connectors, in the build phase and estimated complete in 2027, at $26.7 million plus $320 million^[1]
• Concourse M, a separate six-gate midfield facility, is designed to ‘help maintain airline operations and passenger capacity while the main Barbara Jordan Terminal gates are remodeled and the new 26-gate Concourse B is built’; it is in design with construction estimated to begin in summer 2026^[1]
• No local Austin taxpayer dollars fund the programme: it draws on airport cash reserves, current and future airport revenues, future revenue bond proceeds and FAA grants, and the FAA issued a Finding of No Significant Impact / Record of Decision on July 22, 2022^[1]