Los Angeles Internatinal Archives

LAX Terminals 2 and 3 will be Delta's new home at the airport. (Image: Delta)

Los Angeles International’s Terminals 2 and 3 will be Delta’s new home at the airport. (Image: Delta)

Just a year after Delta partnered with Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA) for a big redevelopment of Terminal 5 at Los Angeles International, the airline has revealed details of a much larger project at LAX – and it doesn’t involve Terminal 5 at all.

The airline said this week it will team up with LAWA again to undertake a massive, years-long overhaul of what will become Delta’s new home at LAX : Terminals 2 and 3, replacing its current base in Terminals 5 and 6. LAWA’s board has just signed off on the deal, which will also include the eventual construction of a post-security connector to the north side of the Tom Bradley International Terminal.

The overhauls of T2 and T3 at LAX will feature a light, spacious design. (Image: Delta)

It seems like there is no end to the ongoing construction and improvement projects at LAX, and this new one will certainly keep things going for a while. Delta said completion of all aspects of the big $1.9 billion project isn’t expected for seven years.

The idea is to bring Delta close to its various partner carriers in T2 and T3, including Aeromexico, Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Australia. The new connector to the Bradley Terminal will also mean “seamless access” for Delta passengers to international partner airlines like Air France-KLM, Alitalia, China Eastern and China Southern.

Delta said that after the terminal overhauls are finished, its customers will see new Delta Sky Clubs in both terminals, a private check-in lounge for Delta One travelers, expedited check-in services for its Delta Shuttle flights, and an integrated in-line baggage system. “The facility will offer convenient passenger flows, sufficient gate-area seating, and a world-class concession program in partnership with Westfield Corporation,” Delta said.

The airline’s announcement didn’t give a timeline for the actual move into the new T2/3 space, but Delta won’t wait until the work is finished before it changes locations. That move is likely to happen as soon as next year. “We will renovate while there (i.e., in T2/3), so four years of construction,” Delta’s Ranjan Goswami told TravelSkills. “It was the only way to do it.” He added that the airlines currently occupying T2 and T3 that are not Delta partners will move over to T5 and T6.

The overall layout of LAX terminals. (Image: Los Angeles International Airport)

The move to the north side of the airport will give Delta the extra space and gates it needs to support its ongoing expansion of operations at LAX. The company noted that over the past seven years, it has increased its LAX operations from 70 daily departures to more than 175, and has more than doubled the total number of seats it offers there. Just this year, it added five flights a day from LAX to Denver, broadened its Delta Shuttle service to include LAX-Seattle as well as LAX-San Francisco, and added a third daily LAX-Boston flight.

Do you fly through LAX much? Thoughts on the move? We were just there today, and the place was bulging at the seems! See below.