Sea-Tac's second terminal still 15 years away, new director says

Seattle-Tacoma International Airport needs a second terminal to accommodate more planeloads of travelers coming practically every year.

The new terminal is one of several projects the airport is embarking on as it strives to meet the increased demand it has already seen and anticipates will continue. Without those projects, the already-crowded airport could face flight delays, long security lines and bustling hallways that aren't easy to navigate, the airport's leaders warned back in 2015 when outlining a long-term master plan" to prepare Sea-Tac for more travelers.

The second terminal - one of the key mandates of the master plan - is still about 15 years away, said Wendy Reiter, Sea-Tac's new managing director.

"But it can't be soon enough because we need it," Reiter said in an interview last week. "We're bursting at the seams."

Reiter, who was named managing director in January, has spent more than 30 years working for or with Sea-Tac. In her new role, her vision is just as long-term.

Reiter has the immediate task of preparing the airport for an influx of travelers in June when Seattle hosts FIFA men's World Cup matches. But she's most excited about bringing to fruition the airport's long-term master plan.

Sea-Tac set another record for demand last year, with 52.7 million passengers traveling through the airport in 2025, an increase of less than 1% from the year prior. It reported 435,896 takeoffs and landings in 2025, and ranked as the 12th busiest airport for commercial travel in the nation in 2024.

The Port of Seattle, which operates the airport, received approval from the Federal Aviation Administration last year to move forward with some of its master plan projects, including the second terminal, marking another step toward breaking ground.

But a lot of the details for the airport's future growth are still up in the air, Reiter said.

Some of those decisions will be dictated by the Port's commissioners, who have the final say on the airport's master plan projects. But Reiter hopes some choices will also be made by the community. She'd like to host focus groups and survey employees about what they'd like to see.

"I love the Northwest. I love Seattle and I really want to bring the Northwest to the vision," Reiter said. "I want the airport to feel like your home."

A career in aviation

Reiter started her career working for airlines. She set up Southwest Airline's Seattle station in the 1990s and later ran the Seattle outpost for the now-defunct Northwest Airlines (years before it merged with Delta Air Lines in 2008).

Reiter's role with both airlines meant she worked closely with Sea-Tac's operations team, particularly when disaster struck.

When the Nisqually earthquake hit Seattle in 2001, Reiter acted as a liaison between the airlines and the airport, helping to determine where the airplanes were, when they might be coming back to Sea-Tac and the runways conditions.

Later that year, after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Reiter joined Sea-Tac's newly formed security department. Until then, security had been rolled into the airport's operations division and airlines were responsible for much of their own security.

Reiter was named director of security and emergency preparedness for the airport in 2008 and stayed in that role for the next 18 years. The Port named her Sea-Tac's managing director in January, replacing Lance Lyttle, who left the position in April 2025 to lead Orlando International Airport.

Lyttle had served as Sea-Tac's managing director for nine years, overseeing the airport during the tumultuous COVID-19 pandemic and then kicking off a five-year, $5 billion series of construction projects meant to improve the passenger experience at the busy airport, known as UpgradeSEA.

Reiter will now take up that mantle, ushering UpgradeSEA across the finish line before the World Cup comes to town.

The airport has already completed several projects ahead of kickoff, including restroom upgrades, roadway improvements, a new check-in station in collaboration with Alaska Airlines and two upgraded security checkpoints.

It's still on track to open the renovated C Concourse, one of UpgradeSEA's major projects, ahead of the World Cup, Reiter said.

Then it will turn toward refurbishing the S Concourse, the airport's main hub for international passengers. Though that project is part of the UpgradeSEA bucket, the airport doesn't expect it will be complete until 2036. It's still in the preliminary stages but the Port expects it could cost $1.9 billion to $2.2 billion. Sea-Tac plans to section off a quarter of the concourse at a time for upgrades, in order to keep the area operating as smoothly as possible.

After UpgradeSEA, the airport is "really going to try to take a breath," Reiter said. But not for long; an airport is never really done construction, she joked.

The next phase of development

Next on Reiter's list is "launching a new phase of development," for the airport's long-term master plan, as the Port of Seattle's Executive Director Steve Metruck put it in a news release announcing Reiter's new position.

That plan, officially called the Sustainable Airport Master Plan, has been in the works since 2015, when the Port first outlined a broad list of objectives to help Sea-Tac meet anticipated demand. The Port identified 31 projects from the master plan that it hopes to tackle first, aiming to have those projects complete or underway by 2032.

But there is a long approval process to get started. The FAA approved the Port's slate of 31 projects, including the second terminal, last year, determining the projects would not have a significant impact on the surrounding communities. The state then started its own assessment of the environmental impact and that review is nearly complete, Reiter said last week. Then, the Port Commission must vote on individual construction projects.

The projects already face a legal challenge from nearby communities who worry the increased air traffic will harm their residents. The cities of Burien, Des Moines and SeaTac in December filed a petition for judicial review of the FAA's recent ruling, arguing the regulator's assessment did not "adequately consider" environmental impacts of the proposed projects.

The lawsuit is meant to ensure that the public's health and safety are protected," city officials wrote in a joint statement after filing the petition.

Asked about the challenge from neighboring communities, Reiter said the airport will continue to talk to residents and "listen to the concerns." She pointed to a program to gather feedback from nearby neighborhoods started by Lyttle, called the Stakeholder Advisory Roundtable, or StART.

Reiter also said the airport wasn't set on completing all of the projects it has been reviewing with the FAA and the state.

"We're not going to do all 31 projects, we know that. It's up to the commissioner which ones we do," Reiter said. After the state's review process, "then we'll start talking to the community about what ones we are going to do."

The second terminal, though, is "absolutely" moving forward, Reiter said.

There are still a lot of unknowns about the new terminal, she continued. The airport hasn't decided what it will look like, how it will be built or even what it will be called. That's where Reiter hopes to gather community input, and she's looking forward to the next phase.

"We have time to think about it," she said. "But we also want to make sure that it is intentional - intentional about budget, intentional about building, intentional about what's next, intentional about growth, intentional about community."

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