Late and over budget, but finally open at MIA

Two years and hundreds of thousands of dollars over budget, Miami International‘s (MIA) five-story, 1.7M square foot terminal featuring shops and a huge rotunda for dining is finally open for service.
The South Terminal adds 15 gates on a new Concourse J and 13 on an improved Concourse H and has three checkpoints and a new federal inspection station for international travelers. It was built at a cost of $1.1B and is the first new terminal built since MIA opened in the 1950s..
The opening will be phased: Delta Air Lines will arrive Wednesday, Air France on Friday, Lan Airlines next Tuesday and others will follow through October. Exploding construction costs contributed to boosting MIA’s massive, long-delayed capital improvement program to $6.2B and will raise the airport’s projected cost per passenger from $17.01 now to the high $30 range by 2015. The South Terminal itself was delayed by a shortage of construction workers, cost overruns due to plan changes, and frequent squabbles between the airport, contractors and consultants.
More to come on this new development.