The details
Noted as a milestone in capacity-building efforts, the new luggage handling system is capable of processing around 4,000 bags a day and serving up to 37 million passengers annually, ABIA CEO Ghizlane Badawi said.
“Added capacity means [the airport] can continue to keep pace with the incredible growth of Central Texas,” she said.
The airport has again seen record numbers in 2025, with the month of October surpassing all previous passenger counts seeing over 2 million total passengers, an almost 9% increase from the previous year, according to a news release.
Additionally, the Monday following the Formula 1 United States Grand Prix event held at Circuit of the Americas set a new single-day record with a total of 45,048 departing passengers screened by TSA.
“This project is more than just about moving luggage, it's about moving our city forward,” Austin City Council member Vanessa Fuentes said. “It's securing jobs for local workers and supporting our local businesses. From the skilled trades that were building the system to the airport staff who operate it—it is this project that supports hundreds of jobs right here in Austin.”
Austin's airport is expected to keep growing, even after current expansion, according to airport executives.
Although ABIA is in the midst of its $4 billion expansion that will add a new terminal and increase capacity, officials expect additional upgrades will be needed soon after the current project concludes in 2030, said Shane Harbinson, chief development officer with the city’s aviation department, during a discussion on the airport’s growth earlier this year.
“It's a parallel concourse design instead of a pier design. Following that theme, we can go up to about 75 to 80 million passengers a year building concourse B, C, D, E and F,” Harbinson said. “The infrastructure we're doing today is setting the table up for that development plan.”
He said current plans for Concourse B are expected to accommodate about 32 million passengers annually. A study conducted in 2019 projected the Austin airport to reach 30 million annual passengers by 2037. Today, it’s projected to reach that number of passengers by 2027, according to ABIA documents.
