United Retired a 1969 Concourse and Built a 54,000-Square-Foot Lounge

United Airlines has opened the new Terminal B North concourse at Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport, replacing a concourse built in 1969. The 765,000-square-foot facility has 22 gates, and together with Terminal B South the project adds 40 new gates for a total of 48.

It is one piece of a $2.5 billion overhaul of Terminal B, with United contributing $1.9 billion and the city of Houston $624 million. The gates are designed for the largest modern single-aisle mainline jets, and United says the hub can grow capacity by 40 percent on peak travel days compared with volume before the project.

The headline amenity is a 54,000-square-foot United Club with seating for 800 and an outdoor terrace, which the airline describes as the largest airport lounge in the Americas. Travelers will also find more than 105,000 square feet of restaurants and shops under high ceilings with floor-to-ceiling windows.

The work goes beyond the concourse itself. The wider project adds curbside and roadway capacity and a new baggage handling system with advanced bag tracking, which matters for the many passengers connecting through Houston to Latin America and beyond.

Sources: Travel Weekly