Anyone who has stood three deep around the carousel at San Diego International Airport watching everyone else’s suitcase roll by might finally catch a break. The regional airport authority has signed off on roughly $16.8 million to modernize the baggage-handling system in Terminal 2 East, with a goal of speeding up belt times, cutting down on breakdowns and getting checked bags into travelers’ hands faster. Construction is scheduled to begin in the first quarter of 2027 and is expected to run about 12 to 16 months.
According to The San Diego Union-Tribune, the project will swap out aging automatic tag readers and replace about 120 conveyors, along with the controls that keep them moving behind the scenes in the Terminal 2 East airline operations area. The airport authority has already received contractor proposals and is proceeding with awarding the work.
What the project does behind the scenes
Project documents filed with state regulators describe a full tune-up of the system that feeds those carousels. The plans call for removing abandoned conveyors, reconfiguring main and sortation equipment to address dieback and jamming, and upgrading upper-level controls with new servers and a centralized uninterruptible power supply to keep things running when power blips.
As detailed in the Terminal 2 East Initial Study, the work will be phased so the terminal can keep operating as much as possible, with baggage capacity shifting between Terminal 2 West and the newly expanded Terminal 1 when needed.
What travelers will notice
If everything goes according to plan, the most visible change for passengers will be fewer stalled belts and faster bag delivery during the crunch times when multiple flights arrive close together. Airport officials point to the new Terminal 1 as the performance benchmark. That terminal’s seven carousels are designed to handle roughly 4,000 bags per hour, a throughput figure the authority uses as a target for modernized systems.
The capacity figures for Terminal 1 come from a SAN press release on the new facility, which the authority has cited in explaining its goals for future baggage-system upgrades across the airport.
Cost and bids
Public bidding records put the overall magnitude of the Terminal 2 East baggage project at about $19.8 million, and the authority reviewed contractor proposals that came in below that estimate. The legal notice and bid materials spell out the expected range of costs and the detailed scope for CIP Project No. 104272.
Those bid estimates and requirements are laid out in the project’s public bid notice and related legal publications, which outline the magnitude of the work and what contractors had to submit to compete for the job.
Nicole Hall, a spokesperson for the airport, told The San Diego Union-Tribune that the overhaul is expected to deliver faster conveyor speeds and less downtime for repairs. She noted that the project will not replace the baggage-claim carousels themselves. Hall said construction is slated to start in the first quarter of next year, with the 12-to-16-month schedule structured to phase work around gate and ticketing operations so passengers see as little disruption as possible.
The Terminal 2 East work is one piece of a broader effort to refresh aging infrastructure at SAN and sync operations with the new Terminal 1 as the airport continues its multi-year capital program. Travelers should keep an eye on airline and airport advisories for any temporary shifts in baggage-drop or baggage-claim procedures once construction gets underway.
