Inside Hollywood Burbank Airport’s $1.3 billion terminal, 40 years in the making

Even on a Thursday afternoon, walking up to the new Hollywood Burbank Airport terminal feels like being under the stars. The curved roof is a spectacular engineering feat, covered with what must be thousands of scattered lights twinkling back at you.

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Mike Christensen, the spokesperson for Hollywood Burbank Airport, told SFGATE the ceiling was inspired by Marilyn Monroe’s “Happy Birthday” dress, a skin-tight, nude-colored gown encrusted with rhinestones and crystals. She wore the dress to sing “Happy Birthday” to President John F. Kennedy at Madison Square Garden in May 1962. 

“It’s all about that Hollywood feel,” Christensen said. “The roof is part of that Hollywood identity.”  

 after the project was approved, Burbank’s new terminal is finally complete and set to open to the public on Tuesday. The new building is just a few hundred feet across a runway from its predecessor and adjacent to San Fernando Road and North Hollywood Way. Spanning 355,000 square feet, the $1.3 billion upgrade is 42% larger than the old terminal that is slated to be demolished within the next year and is completely modernized. 

And yet, even with the substantial passenger growth the airport has experienced since the project was first approved (more than 2 million more passengers since 2016),airport officials and the general public were adamant that the airport still needed to give travelers what they’ve loved about it for years all while solving a big problem: It must preserve the convenience and approachability of the old terminal while fixing safety issues that the Federal Aviation Administration has been pointing out for decades.

“We wanted to enhance convenience, enhance the customer experience, but keep that warmth, that human touch that people think of when they think of Burbank,” Executive Director of the Hollywood Burbank Airport John Hatanaka told SFGATE.

The case for a new terminal

Popular for its small size and handy location, Burbank served more than 6 million passengers on nine airlines in 2025. Southwest makes up roughly three-quarters of the airport’s traffic, according to Christensen, and flies to 18 destinations, including Sacramento and, in the Bay Area, Oakland, San Jose, Santa Rosa and San Francisco.

Burbank is only a 30-mile drive from Los Angeles International Airport, but the mega hub is another world. It served more than 73 million passengers in 2025, with over 70 airlines connecting its nine terminals to worldwide destinations. Burbank serves only domestic flights, mostly to cities in the western United States, but choosing its convenience and small size over LAX’s massive sprawl, long lines and traffic congestion is an easy decision when you can. 

But the old terminal, first opened in 1930, was cramped and strictly utilitarian, and it lacked amenities like lounges that today’s travelers seek out. It also didn’t comply with Federal Aviation Administration safety standards mandating how much space there should be between an airport’s terminals and its runways. The federal government has recognized the need for a new terminal since 1996, when the issued a report stating that the old facility did not have enough gates, hold rooms, baggage claims or ticket counters to keep up with projected passenger growth.

The old terminal also fails California’s modern-day seismic safety standards. In 1991, airport officials declined a city engineering analysis for earthquake safety, because they said the building was “probably substantially in compliance already,” according to a 1994 Los Angeles Times story, and at the time, a new terminal was expected to be built by 1998. 

Today, Christensen said the new terminal and its runways are in compliance with not just the FAA’s standards but also Americans with Disabilities Act standards and seismic requirements.  

“It’s a massive upgrade and a lot safer,” Christensen said. “Unlike the old facility, where assigning planes to gates was almost like solving a puzzle because all the gates were different sizes, these are all common-use gates. They’re the same size. Any aircraft that fits our operational requirements can essentially use any gate.”

While safety was the biggest concern, the airport also needed to prepare for passenger growth, Hatanaka said. In 2016, voters in the city of Burbank passed Measure B to approve the project, and in 2022, the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority gave the design-build contract to the Holder, Pankow, TEC, Joint Venture, along with Corgan and CannonDesign for architecture and design and Burns & McDonnell as an engineering subconsultant.The airport finally broke ground in January 2024.

“Our goal is to keep growing, but growing in a manner that is respectful to the communities, the people that use the airport, and provides opportunities for economic growth.”

A walk through the new terminal

Upon walking in, the new terminal feels incredibly vast. The same twinkling lights from the outdoor roof are embedded into the soaring ceilings, scattered like constellations. Natural light and floor-to-ceiling windows make it feel even more spacious. 

Hatanaka said the design team’s goal was to keep a feeling of “coziness” while removing some of the airport’s major friction points. The execution of the terminal was left in the hands of residents, not just airport officials, from the very beginning.

“We went through a public charrette process from very early on to determine what was important to the community … some in Glendale and Pasadena, three in Burbank, and one in Los Angeles,” Hatanaka said. “That provided a lot of input about what was important to the users of the building, and Corgan was able to develop many of its ideas from that feedback.”

Residents didn’t want to spend more than a $1 billion to turn Burbank into the next major hub. Instead, they opted to keep the airport’s intimate allure intact and only remove the friction points. The terminal still has 14 gates, the same number as before, and no jet bridges, meaning flyers will still get to walk on the tarmac.

“The two big things were: number one, keep it convenient,” Christensen said. “Number two, keep airfield boarding — no jet bridges.” 

The terminal layout as you enter is incredibly straightforward, with sleek ticketing counters on the right, security in the middle and baggage claim on the left. Christensen said while the old terminal had two checkpoints, one of the goals here was to simplify the passenger flow to minimize confusion.

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“It should be more efficient,” Christensen said. “You’d be surprised [at the old terminal] to have people who would ask and be like, ‘Which way am I going?’ Now, you cannot get lost.”

The new terminal also includes common-sense upgrades. Passengers waiting at their gates will have a plethora of seating options. And the larger restrooms are incredibly modern with blue backsplash tile, oval mirrors, and clean black-and-white countertops. When evaluating design concepts, the public had three proposals to choose from. The airport commission, the airlines and the general public eventually landed on the theme named “The Icon.”

“It blended old Hollywood nostalgia with midcentury modern design while incorporating all the engineering we need today to meet seismic standards and FAA design standards,” Hatanaka said.  

The nod to old Hollywood is not overtly cheesy, but soft and subtle. Beyond the Marilyn Monroe dress, the new terminal sign is backdropped by what’s meant to mimic a silver screen, and little pieces of old Hollywood nostalgia can be found inside.

Another priority for the project was to place local identity at the forefront. Although FAA regulations prohibit choosing concessionaires based solely on geography, the airport encouraged Marshall Retail Group, which selected the airport’s concessionaires, to “incorporate local concepts,” Hatanaka said. From there, the operator was able to put together a blend of both local and national chains.

“You’ll see brands associated with Jet Tila and Guy Fieri, but you’ll also see local favorites like Border Grill and Poquito Más, both of which have strong followings in the San Fernando Valley, West Los Angeles, Glendale, and Burbank,” Hatanaka said. “The goal is a balance between local flavor and national brands that travelers expect.”

Blank walls will soon be filled with artwork from local artists. The plan is to have the installations rotate regularly, Christensen said. It’s another way the airport plans to put a spotlight on the region. 

As for ground transportation, Burbank has made several adjustments. The new terminal includes parking for 2,000 vehicles in a new seven-floor garage. Travelers from the two nearby Metrolink stations will be able to take shuttles to the new terminal, although Hatanaka mentioned they can still walk to both, even though it is a bit farther. Travelers who need a rental car will still need to head to the Regional Intermodal Transportation Center down Hollywood Way in its current location, but the airport will have shuttles to take them there. 

A story of growth

Though some airports like Oakland have struggled to regain the passenger traffic they lost during the pandemic, Burbank surpassed the 5.9 million passengers it served in 2019 last year, when 6.2 million passed through. While the airport continues to aspire to grow, Hatanaka was adamant about not losing the essence of what makes Hollywood Burbank Airport special in the process. 

“Our goal is to continue growing, but in a way that’s respectful of our surrounding communities and continues to provide economic benefits,” he said. “We know we’re one of the smaller medium-sized airports. We’d like to be a little bigger.”

The airport expects the new gate and runway configuration will allow airlines to bring in larger aircraft than the Boeing 737s that dominate its traffic, stimulating more organic growth. Southwest plans to increase the frequency of its nonstop flight to Honolulu in November now that the operational constraint of the old terminal is lifted.

“Airlines no longer have to ask, ‘Do I have an aircraft that will fit in Burbank?’” Hatanaka said. “They know it’ll fit.”

Besides Southwest and Alaska (which also flies to Honolulu seasonally), United, Frontier, American, Delta, JetBlue, Breeze and Allegiant also fly to Burbank. Passengers from the San Fernando Valley, Ventura County and the surrounding areas can hop to around 30 domestic destinations as far east as Atlanta, Chicago and New York hassle-free.

Hatanaka said Burbank’s greatest advantage is that it’s much easier to reach than LAX, which usually requires the perpetually crowded Interstate 405 freeway. As the airport succeeds in adding more destinations, its popularity will increase.

“As aircraft technology improves and airplanes can fly farther while operating from relatively short runways, airlines have more opportunities to add destinations,” he said. “That includes East Coast markets, midcontinent destinations and continued service to Hawaii.”

In the near future, the airport also hopes to increase output on current routes to stimulate passenger growth. International service remains a distant possibility since the airport currently doesn’t have space for a customs facility. But even if it did, Hatanaka said adding internationals would be “a lengthy process.”

“You need approval from federal agencies,” he said. “You need support from the governor. You need support from congressional representatives. You need airline support because they’re paying for both operations and capital improvements.”  

While the new terminal is larger, brighter, more modern and safer, officials are defining success by its ability to still be the airport that travelers have always loved. 

“It was a labor of love, a labor of dedication, and a labor force that lives in the area and really wanted to see the project come to fruition,” Hatanaka said. “We worked collaboratively to bring the project home on a schedule that was admittedly aggressive, but everybody wanted to see if we could really do it, and we worked toward that goal.”