New terminal is likely on the way for Kansas City International Airport

The flight path to a new Kansas City International Airport crossed another waypoint on Tuesday, when airline representatives, consultants and city staff recommended doing away with discussions of major renovations to the existing airport.

Steve Sisneros, director of airport affairs for Southwest Airlines, told Kansas City, Missouri’s City Council during a special meeting that costs of building a new terminal would be less than $1 billion, whereas major renovations would be greater than $1 billion.

Precise, or even rough costs, Sisneros said, were not available.

“At this stage, preliminary new terminal options are less expensive,” Sisneros said.

Scott Taylor, a Kansas City councilman, asked the KCI committee to still formulate cost estimates for renovations so that the public could compare renovations versus new terminal designs, but the committee wouldn’t commit to that.

Months of negotiations between airlines and city staffers narrowed down several proposals to four options for the future of KCI. There were two major renovation scenarios and two new terminal proposals. 

In the end, Sisneros and others found that major renovations would be less efficient, less flexible and less practical than new terminal designs. Thus, Sisneros suggested tabling further discussion of the two major renovation scenarios and forging ahead with pursuing the pair of new terminal proposals. 

A final decision is expected by May 2016. Discussions will move now to finer points of single-terminal proposals and a business plan to finance the new KCI. Patrick Klein, an assistant city manager, said a building probably wouldn’t open until 2021.