Above and Beyond: Nashville Airport Improvements Soar

Jeff Adkins

So much is happening these days at Nashville International Airport (BNA) that it can be hard to keep up with it all. 

BNA Marketplace: A Taste of Nashville

The BNA Vision expansion and renovation construction projects that took place from 2017 to early 2024 are now complete. Among the improvements are the opening of the International Arrivals Facility and the debut of BNA Marketplace, which offers a variety of food and retail concessions. 

“At BNA Marketplace, we wanted to attract local brands with familiar Nashville names that reflect the vibe of the city,” says Stacey Nickens, BNA vice president of corporate communications and marketing. “We brought in businesses like Hattie B’s Hot Chicken, Slim & Husky’s Pizza, The Titans Press Box, Parnassus Books, Acme Feed & Seed and more.” 

Also completed during BNA Vision were extending Concourse D, adding new security areas, adding a pedestrian bridge and opening the Hilton BNA Nashville Airport Terminal hotel. Nickens says significant improvements to the airport’s Grand Lobby ticketing area also occurred. 

“The Grand Lobby now has huge multimedia screens above the ticket counters that stream beautiful scenes of Nashville and Tennessee,” she says. “We used drones to capture incredible footage of Reelfoot Lake, the Great Smoky Mountains, our pro sports teams, Broadway at night in downtown Nashville and much more.” 

New Horizon: The Next Chapter in BNA’s Growth

The next construction initiative at BNA is called New Horizon, which is underway and has a targeted completion date of 2028. The $1.5 billion New Horizon project includes improvements to Concourse A and Concourse B, a new air freight building, a new baggage handling system and major road upgrades. 

Nickens says one of the key road projects will be expanding the terminal roadway where motorists drop off and pick up passengers. 

“The roadway currently is three lanes, which has been the case since the 1980s,” she says. “We will be expanding from three lanes to six lanes, and we’ll also increase the roadway from a 1-mile radius loop to a 2-mile radius around the airport.” 

The airport now serves nearly 19 million passengers a year, generates about $10 billion in annual economic impact, supports more than 76,000 jobs in the region and has 23 commercial airlines that handle 600+ daily operations. 

“We recently set a new one-day record of departing passengers through the TSA checkpoint — a total of 43,474 people flew out of BNA on May 5, 2024,” Nickens says. “That surpasses the previous record of 43,447 passengers on October 15, 2023. And as busy as this airport is, a new record will probably be set sooner than later.”