Des Moines International renovates baggage screening area -- and terminals
Iowa’s Des Moines International is renovating its baggage screening area — but uses the occasion for renovations to two terminals, bringing their style out of the 1980s and into this century
An extensive $6 million renovation at the Des Moines International Airport is taking the airport’s style out of the 1980s. For months, travelers at the airport have seen a big plywood wall that promises that changes are on the way. Now, those changes are starting to take shape.
Six months after the renovations began, Concourse A is nearly finished. From flat-screen TVs to new compact desks and monitors at the gate, it’s a new look for a new century. Concourse B will have a new business center, new restrooms and eventually, a second elevator.
Construction is also under way in the new baggage screening area. Eventually, TSA screeners and new baggage scanners will go out of sight, behind ticket counters. “Hopefully, we go back to the good old days when you check in at the counter, your bags go through the wall and through the screening process, and when you get off your plane at the destination, your bag is waiting for you,” airport spokesman Roy Criss said.
Until it is ready, passengers will have to continue to carry their own bags to temporary screening areas. Airport renovations to the baggage screening area and to Concourse C should be finished by next spring.
A long-term plan calls for a new airport terminal, but it’s only scheduled to happen sometime in the next 25 years.
