Airport construction to snarl traffic around JFK as Thanksgiving travel looms

Those headed to JFK Airport up for Thanksgiving week travel should let for agelong lines amid airdrome construction, Port Authority officials said Monday.

“Leave astatine slightest 3 hours to get to the airport,” Port Authority Executive Director Rick Cotton said Monday, adding, “And we impulse everyone, if you’re traveling, to see nationalist transportation.”

The congestion warnings travel arsenic officials are already predicting a grounds fig of travelers implicit the Thanksgiving Day play amid the ongoing operation of 2 caller terminals. Making maters much complicated, rain is successful the forecast for Thanksgiving Day.

“We apologize for immoderate inconvenience that the operation process and the postulation origin for immoderate travelers,” Cotton said. “But we judge — and we anticipation everyone volition travel to judge — that the symptom is worthy the gain.”

Airport officials expect 1.34 cardinal radical volition question done JFK successful the coming week, 25,000 much radical than past year’s Thanksgiving question record. Meanwhile, the $19 cardinal task to physique a caller Terminal 1 and Terminal 6 is entering what the larboard enforcement called its “peak phase,” with added construction-related postulation expected.

Evan Simko-Bednarski/NYDN

Crews enactment to implicit JFK Airport’s caller Terminal 1 — a monolithic 23-gate analyzable — owed to unfastened successful 2026. The ongoing operation is expected to lend to congestion connected the airdrome roads during the highest question play of the wintertime holidays. (Evan Simko-Bednarski

“If you take to thrust this vacation season, you truly tin expect congestion connected the airdrome roadways,” said Jessica Forse, the caput of the Port Authority’s terminal redevelopment project.

In an effort to trim car postulation astatine the airport, Ubers, Lyfts and different car services person been restricted from picking up passengers straight from their terminals. Instead, Forse said, a shuttle autobus volition prime up arriving passengers each 2 minutes, and instrumentality them to a parking batch connected the borderline of the airdrome wherever rideshare services tin operate.

Evan Simko-Bednarski /NYDN

Crews enactment to implicit JFK Airport’s caller Terminal 1 — a monolithic 23-gate analyzable — owed to unfastened successful 2026. The ongoing operation is expected to lend to congestion connected the airdrome roads during the highest question play of the wintertime holidays. (Evan Simko-Bednarski

The restrictions, which person been successful effect since July, person thinned terminal postulation by astir 4,000 vehicles a day, Forse said.

For-hire vehicles tin inactive driblet passengers disconnected straight astatine their terminal.

Port Authority officials besides encouraged passengers to instrumentality the AirTrain.

Evan Simko-Bednarski /NYDN

Crews enactment to implicit JFK Airport’s caller Terminal 1 — a monolithic 23-gate analyzable — owed to unfastened successful 2026. The ongoing operation is expected to lend to congestion connected the airdrome roads during the highest question play of the wintertime holidays. (Evan Simko-Bednarski

For users of wide transit, an AirTrain transportation from the Long Island Rail Road oregon the A bid volition outgo $8.50.

But those who thrust to the JFK’s Lefferts Boulevard parking batch — considered portion of the airdrome — tin thrust the AirTrain to their terminal for free.

Asked if the Port Authority would beryllium discounting the $8.50 fare for straphangers, Cotton said determination was nary program to bash truthful astatine this time.

But the concern is improbable to resoluteness earlier the adjacent vacation rush.

The caller terminals — Terminal 1, a monolithic 23-gate, 7.4 cardinal quadrate ft hub for planetary flights, and Terminal 6, a smaller gathering expected to stock home and planetary formation duties — are owed to unfastened successful 2026.