LAX is about to renovate terminal 5 at a cost of $1.7 billion. The plan is to substantially complete work in time for the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. This will upgrade the terminal experience, but will not add any gates.
American, JetBlue, and Spirit currently utilize terminal 5. Airlines are expected to move out of the terminal in October 2025, and current schedle has partial operations re-opening there in May 2027.
- Replace mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems.
- Upgrade ticketing, security, baggage claim, and concessions.
- Improve holdrooms to better accommodate passengers.
- Enhance employee facilities.
- Improve the current airside connectivity with Terminals 4 and 6. (Despite the marketing around “new connections,” T5 already has airside links to Terminals 4 and 6 via underground walkways and the Tom Bradley International Terminal connector.)
American Airlines CEO Robert Isom told employees in the fall, in a closed-door meeting,
If anybody’s been out there over the years, LAX has not been one of the airports and facilities we’ve been the most proud of. It’s a difficult operation. Difficult for passengers. Difficult to get aircraft in and out of. By 2028 we’re going to have new facilities throughout. We just opened up in T4 the South end of T4, which will give you an idea what things are going to look like.
American Airlines Terminal 4, LAX
The airport authority describes the 2028 time as unprecedented and ‘record time’, but it is not. And spending $1.7 billion without building a single gate is certainly something. Denver’s concourse expansion added 39 new gates for $2.3 billion (including relocating airlines, a commuter facility, the American Airlines Admirals Club, and more). The new 35-gate terminal at New Orleans Louis Armstrong International Airport cost $1.3 billion. Building in California is more expensive!
The terminal was originally opened in 1962, housing Western Airlines. It was remodeled on a faster timeline around Delta’s acquisition of Western (1986 – early 1988). Delta exited the terminal in 2017, and the old Sky Club (barely renovated) is now an American Airlines Admirals Club.
Delta at LAX
American Airlines wants to make sure it keeps its gates at LAX, but has scaled back its ambitions there and is no longer the largest carrier. Long haul flying is limited to joint venture partner hubs. They never even re-opened their Flagship First Dining room, or even made it available as overflow space inside their business class lounge.
A person can complain about the money being spent. But, if a person *regularly* travels through a particular terminal, it’s a drag if it’s a dungeon. Anyone remember Delta’s old T2 lounges? Now, look at the result of Delta’s T2/T3 refurbishment. I’ll take the upgraded facility and don’t mind the fees that are embedded in ticket prices.
I don’t get this criticism of airport redevelopments where gates are not added. I often hear the same criticism of the LGA redevelopments – that they didn’t add any gates. Well the airport is still a vastly improved customer experience, and that is what matters to a lot of people. Same with this – in my experience, AA Terminal 5 is a dump. Delta’s facilities at LAX were lackluster, now they are great. Improving airports is a good thing.
JetBlue should add a lounge here too
T5 is a beautiful terminal, warm travertine tile all over, high ceilings. Just putting in too many flights for the gates allotted.
T5 is one of the better gates. I hardly see how that money couldn’t be better spent using other funds on helping rebuild from the fires.
This will ensure that LAX is a no-growth zone for the next 5 years and it will get much more difficult for passengers on everyone not in DL, WN or UA’s terminals or what AA can fit in T4 as they will undoubtedly be pushed deeper into TBIT and the satellite concourse.
@Anthony – the problem with LGA isn’t gates it’s runways and airspace congestion. Who cares that the ceilings leaked before?
I flew out of T4 yesterday on the AA transcon. I can confidently say that what once was brilliant is now mega-loser/the future has failed us vibes. T4 was (and T5 is) A+ TSA pre-check lines. You wait at most 2-3 minutes and then you are in the screening and out in maybe another 2 minutes. So fast, so efficient. I can get to the airport 50 minutes before departure and have extra time. Now it’s ANALOGIC as far as the eye can see with snail-like processing. Such a disappointment. Give me back the pig.
T5 is really low-brow and really awful but the legacy Delta Admirals Club is “nice.” The bathrooms lack maximum privacy. The whole operation screams used-up but that’s kind of the LA vibe so it works for me.
Good luck getting anything done in Los Angeles on time, let alone “record” time. (The record could be for longest time to repaint a large room.). This will be ripe with fraud and abuse. The city is wildly incompetent and stocked with cronies who are more focused on their socialist agenda. Also, with “the fires” the bureaucrats are all “stretched.”
In short, prepare for things to get worse.
@ Joseph
Let’s see…which Olympic games actually made a profit? Oh that’s right, the Los Angeles games of 1984. Traffic was very low and they came off without a hitch.
But don’t let me distract you from Fox. Enjoy the convicted felon, rapist presidency you helped create. It’s a shame Trump’s buddy Jeffrey Epstein won’t be there to celebrate with him
I think at best American will break even on their operations at LAX. American has high labor costs. Some people will want to take them or another major USA airline across the Pacific Ocean and are willing to pay a somewhat higher price. I have been choosing Asian airlines myself since the merger of NWA with Delta such as EVA and Asiana. Good food and good cabin service. Selectable seats in better seating arrangements. Checked luggage is included. The price has gone up quite a bit since Covid-19 but it is still ok.
Good case for DOGE. Contractors are union, which adds 20% extra cost. Use non-union labor and save $340m.
My understanding is that T5 will be demolished and rebuilt from the ground up. I have no idea what gates AA will use to backfill the loss of T5 (not sure how many they use today). They might be able to use MSC South when it opens but that’s a hike from T4 to there.
This is a city that let an entire section burn down because they couldn’t even keep the fire hydrants working.
@Tom K
Its must really bother you that a felon beat you magic black woman who was supposed to win in a landslide?
Remember she lost because BIDEN and the democrats failed in the most basic way to keep this country running. Not to mention they enable the ped0phile alphabet movement.
The actual data for LAX is interesting. Domestically, the US3 airlines perform about the same despite fans of each airline proclaiming dominance / strength. As per DOT data from Oct ’23-’24 – the first # is LF, then avg. fare, then avg. seat miles:
– DL: 87.6%, 257, 29.5M
– AA: 87.4%, 260, 27.4M
– UA: 87.2%, 244, 23.9M
Each airline has stronger / weaker regions from LAX, but overall they’re around the same and perform pretty well – there is a glut of AA capacity that will drop in the market once the renovations are over, and they get 10 more gates which will likely result them in retaking #1, but outside of bragging rights that means nothing.
For international routes for which fare data is not as available – first # is international ASMs and 2nd is LF:
– UA: 13.5M, 75.1%
– AA: 10.1M, 78.3%
– DL: 9.8M, 75.9%
Generally 80% is considered the benchmark for profitability for, so LAX intl. is below average for everyone. These numbers are after UA pulled out of BNE and AKL completely & cut an LHR frequency (so they were even worse before) – Crankyflier published data for UA LFs from LAX showing UA was losing $$ on LAX-SYD, MEL, and LHR in winter 2024. Tokyo and HKG were strong performers while PVG was about break-even.
DL pulled LHR and cut AKL and PPT frequency. It was just announced yesterday that DL is pulling out of LAX-SAN and LAX-GUA gutting Central America operations from LAX – they are begrudingly planning on starting PVG, but that may impact LFs for its SEA-PVG which itself is slightly above break-even and UA is around break-even on – not a promising route.
The international expansions from UA and DL post-COVID have mostly failed as UA and DL discover what AA found, and this is before US-China bilateral flight #’s are at low levels. Domestically all 3 do well with marginal differentiation while internationally outside of the JV hubs it’s ugly. No one is killing it at LAX.
“The terminal was originally opened in 1962, housing Western Airlines. It was remodeled on a faster timeline around Delta’s acquisition of Western (1986 – early 1988).”
Most casual observers believe the Western project was a total rebuild of T-5. It was not. The connector (curb-to-satellite) was the only from-ground-up portion built. The terminal portion was built around the much of the innards (including original foundation) of the original satellite.
@Mikey B: With T-9 now on the back burner, wouldn’t surprise me if the Eagle satellite gets a temporary “stay of execution”. Combined with the soon-to-be commissioned MSC South gates, and the existing N/B gates on MSC North, there should be plenty of slack to accommodate the closure of T-5
Jeremy,
I’m not sure what your point is but DL is considerably larger than AA or UA with UA the most distant. further, the same data you copied from a.net shows that UA has the lowest average domestic fare.
What some of you struggle to understand is that DL is the largest airline at LAX and the extra international flights UA operates doesn’t make a difference.
UA has always been much more about a thin and wide route system while DL has had a more dense network but one which produces a whole lot more revenue while burning a lot less jet fuel. In other words, DL’s network is much more efficient at generating profits and revenues – even if it doesn’t get the “wows” from those that are enamored with sexy networks over what airlines are supposed to do.
At LAX, just as at most domestic airports that are not UA hubs, DL is larger than UA and it is the domestic market that has generated more revenue and profits than international networks – and that is not going to change. If international is very profitable, other airlines will jump into UA’s markets but it will be much harder for UA to grow into the domestic market.
none of which changes that AA has lost share in most of the major competitive markets and as much as they want to get that back, it will be far harder for AA to regain share in NYC, LAX and CHI that it has lost than they want to believe.
and LAX will not have sufficient gates for growth for years to come.
Gary, I don’t know why you’re harping on about no new gates. There isn’t room at T5 for new gates (or at T4, T6, and T7) unless you want to remove 25R and shift the taxiway over so that they can lengthen T5 and of course that’s never happening.
I think it’s very obvious if you read and look at the data carefully Tim – no airline is able to get a consistent revenue premium in LAX. United has a much larger near-in regional network than DL and AA currently explaining some of the revenue shortfall. AA outperforms UA and DL in Midwest – LA routes. DL has caught up and has a slightly leads in NYC – LA and a stronger West Coast – LAX network, but it’s not that substantial. There is no consistent revenue premium overall at LAX for any of the US3.
And no, there is plenty of data showing none of UA, AA previously, and DL currently have been able to identify more than 1-2 profitable long-haul routes. A chunk of DL and UA’s current long haul operations are almost certainly losing money.
LAX will not have enough capacity for anyone to grow substantially until 2027-28, but that domestic growth is almost certainly going to be AA. Bottom line is no one will be able to dominate LAX – works for United b/c they have SFO while DL at least has a backup in SEA where they’re battling Alaska, but not good for AA even if they recover to marginally lead there.
Also DL’s lead at LAX is not that substantial – AA has pulled back and is operating at 23 gates, but has continuously proclaimed they do not plan on losing any gates meaning they will return to 33 gates. That means they will be the potential to boost their capacity by almost 50% which, funnily enough, would return them to about pre-COVID levels at LAX and #1.
DL, like UA, is operating marginally (<2%) above 2019 levels – the story at LAX is AA choosing to delay its return to capacity during renovations while UA and DL did not, and not either airline substantially growing.
You have rightly jumped on UA for adding a ton of unprofitable long-haul routes from LAX post COVID (sans HK) to drive their growth which tbd how long it will last, but DL hasn’t exactly killed it either – they perform behind AA to Tokyo, London (when it operated), and Sydney.
jeremy,
you are just like the thousands of people that litter aviation social media that can’t stand to admit that “your team” regardless of who it is – is not in first place and someone else is.
DL took advantage of covid to grow in NYC, BOS and LAX, there is plenty of data to show that it was successful, DL is much stronger in key competitive markets than it was pre-covid and AA and UA’s advantages have shrunk, and the dreams that you and others have that “your team” will “get ’em the next time” is not in line w/ reality.
T5 will be out for years. No one said that AA will give up gates. That doesn’t mean they will be able to regain market share in key markets that they gave up. and remember that part of AA’s decisions at LAX involved giving up major north-south west coast markets to AS – so when you are ready to tell us that AA is going to dump its relationship with AS and kick them out of oneworld, then your predictions might be worthwhile.
DL now has 15% more flights than DL in NYC and twice as many as AA. Given that NYC is capacity and slot-restricted, it is flights that matter the most. DL will upgrade w/ larger planes in time but they have a substantial advantage in NYC.
Decisions have consequences… like UA’s decision to pull out of JFK years ago and AA’s decision to believe that Vasu knew what he was talking about.
AA decided to focus on connecting small markets and they did that better than anyone… last year. Now that DL is adding much more regional capacity to smaller markets, AA’s advantage could be wiped out this year.
none of which changes that LAX is at capacity in most terminals and will be. AA can fight it out w/ LAWA as to who gets pushed into TBIT and the remote concourses but the demolition of T5 will have a major impact on competitiveness for airlines that use that side of the terminal.
And UA’s dreams of a much bigger terminal at LAX are mirages in the desert
Hey! Be nice to that ‘pig’ — she’s trying her best! A little lipstick never hurt.
Been through LAX recently. The new DeltaOne lounge is excellent. Even the regular UnitedClub is pretty nice. Great plane-spotting for those that enjoy it. Yeah, T5 needs some TLC. Expect it to take much longer than they say it will (as with everything in our shithole country). Hopefully ready in time for the Olympics.
1989.5
you know that presentation was done before scores of square miles of LA county burned which will force up construction prices and extend out completion time lines.
LA might bid for the 2048 Olympics and T5 will be ready for that.
I love when someone uses DOT stats against Tim Dunn and he literally folds like a cheap tent.
@Doug Swalen “I don’t know why you’re harping on about no new gates. There isn’t room at T5 for new gates”
The point is that the cost of a new gate at over $100m apiece is insane, but spending that much for 0 gates, just to renovate the terminal is just bizarre.
roberto,
jeremy copied and pasted that data from a.net and manipulated it to come up w a story which the data doesn’t even say.
nobody is using the data is against me. It is that someone wants desperately for the data not to say what it does.
and Gary is right. It is BEYOND INSANE that LAWA is spending $2 billion (and the final price tag will be over that amount) for no new gates.
LMAO “manipulated” the data. I presented the actual numbers and what they say. Please feel free to mention which parts you disagree with – where is your data? No airline having pricing power at LAX given AA is at 260, DL at 257, and UA at 244? You can look up the individual routes for each too – there’s no significant advantage for any of the 3 on most competitive routes. UA and DL having strong international networks despite having <80% LFs? That DL and UA have <5% domestic passenger growth vs 2019 in 2024?
You don't have a story about LAX that works for your narrative which is pro-DL which is why you're lashing out. LAX is (as before) a strong domestic airport for the US3 with significant O&D. LAX continues to be (as before) a challenging long-haul market with tons of competition where the US3 have struggled to grow. This continues to be the case.
I am not a blind cheerleader for any airline. DL is the best-run airline overall, while UA is catching up and very possibly may pass them (leads internationally but lags domestically). AA has a strong domestic network but lags both. With the right leadership it can bridge much of the gap.
Based upon the way California does things (like at it’s “high speed rail” project) come 2028 the terminal will still be under construction.
a 6% difference in average fare – which is what exists between AA and UA – IS significant at an airport where you, by your own words, says is highly competitive.
a double digit percentage difference between share IS significant.
If you don’t accept that the big 3 ARE NOT EQUAL in LAX, then you are manipulating the data in your own mind.
LAX is not like ATL, DFW, DTW, EWR, IAH, JFK, LGA, ORD etc.
It is a competitive spoke that is somewhere between LGA (with a high percentage of O&D) and SFO (which has much higher levels of connecting traffic).
LAX is geographically disadvantaged as a connecting hub to much of the world except the S. Pacific but it has a large local market.
LAX is highly competitive not just domestically but also internationally. Just because a carrier chooses not to compete in any market does not mean they cannot.
In short, while the difference in lead is not as great as it is in the other hubs, there are very much differences in the big 3’s presence at LAX.
DL is the largest total carrier and domestically at LAX.
but let’s be clear that sheer size at any airport does not mean the greatest profitability – which is the only mandate that all of the big 3 have from their owners, their shareholders.
DL spent billions rebuilding AND EXPANDING its presence at LAX and could not have grown to its current position without that renovation.
even if AA loses no gates in the long term, the notion that, someday in the distant future, AA will regain a position they gave up for whatever reason, is simply a pipe dream
“ jeremy copied and pasted that data from a.net and manipulated it”
DING DING DING. Your favorite thing to do! Karma at its finest. Just take your L and get a life.
you wouldn’t know accurate data analysis if it hit you between the ….