PORTLAND, Ore. — Portland International Airport underwent a radical overnight transformation in the early hours of Wednesday morning, with ticketing counters, security checkpoints and exit lanes all moving to brand-new homes inside the sprawling new main terminal building.
The wide-open space below the nine-acre mass timber roof is a great place for dining, exploring or just taking in the outdoorsy vibe, but at some point, travelers flying out of PDX will have to find their way out to their gates.
If there's one thing the folks at PDX want to stress, it's that travelers should arrive early — because while the new layout is designed to be more modern, efficient and even fun, it's still going to be unfamiliar.
Here's how it all works:
Checking in
The old check-in and baggage counters ran along the front length of the terminal, facing the arrival doors. The first big change travelers will notice is that the new ones have been flipped 90 degrees into "islands" that stretch from the entrance towards the center of the terminal, making it easier for people to pass straight through if they don't need to use them.
For those who do need to print a boarding pass or check a bag, they just need to follow the signs to their airline's island. Some of the counter stations are self-serve, allowing visitors to tag and drop their bags right onto the belt in the middle of the island.
The market hall
Heading past the islands, travelers will find a row of new shops and businesses flanking the indoor forest that makes up the central heart of the terminal. The far side of the building is dominated by the mezzanine, a two-story structure with retail shops on the lower level and the Loyal Legion beer hall on top, with a stairs and stadium seating on either side.
The whole area is pre-security and replaces the old (and much smaller) pre-security shops and food court that were tucked behind the ticket counters. Newer Portland residents might not even remember the old version — the whole area was closed off in 2020 when construction began on the new terminal.
Security checkpoints
With the old food court closed off in recent years, travelers have gotten used to heading straight to the left or right from the old ticket counter to reach the security checkpoints on either side of the terminal. Those areas are closed off now — they'll be the next part of the building to get torn down and rebuilt, now that the new security stations are open.
The new security stations are at the rear of the terminal, so travelers will want to head back to the mezzanine first. From there, the directions are the same as before: turn left for the B and C gates or right for the D and E gates. The new checkpoints follow a familiar layout, but PDX officials say they're designed to move people through a little faster.
Travelers also don't have to worry about getting stuck on the wrong side of the airport anymore. The terminal construction closed the post-security concourse connector corridor that allowed travelers to zip from the B and C gates to the D and E gates and back, but the new terminal includes a new concourse connector tucked under the back of the mezzanine.
Detours remain
The old post-security atriums gave travelers an easy choice: on the north side, turn left for the D gates and right for the E gates. On the south side, turn left for the B gates and right for the C gates.
Things got a little more complicated during the remodel, because the construction zone blocked direct access to the C and D concourses. A pair of temporary bypass corridors were installed between the concourses on either side of the airport, allowing passengers to reach the C gates from the B concourse and the D gates from the E concourse.
Eventually, things will go back to the way they were before the construction, but the bypass corridors will remain in place for another 18 months while the old security checkpoints are torn down and rebuilt. In the meantime, it's now the B and E gates that are cut off from the post-security atriums — travelers can reach them using the detours from the C and D concourses.
Temporary exit lane
Once the old security areas are rebuilt, they'll serve as new exit lanes. But in the meantime, arriving travelers on both sides of the airport will need to head to the concourse connector to reach a single temporary exit lane that passes out underneath the mezzanine — dropping them right in the middle of the action at the center of the new terminal.
Baggage claim is the one part of the main terminal that hasn't moved around during the remodel. The finished terminal will add new escalators right next to the new exit lanes to reach it, but for the moment, travelers can head back out to the old front check-in hall and down the existing escalators.
