The six modules for Dallas Fort Worth International Airport’s planned Terminal F Skylink station are now in place along the existing guideway. That marks a major construction step, but not an opening: crews still need to connect and integrate the modules before passengers can use the station, DFW said in its announcement.
The modules weighed between 210 and 310 tons apiece. DFW compared the heaviest with a fully loaded Boeing 777. Crews assembled the units at ground level and lifted them into place overnight; each lift took about eight hours. The airport said the crane arrived in roughly 60 truckloads and took nearly two weeks to assemble, with overnight work scheduled to limit disruption to the Skylink system.
A modular approach, with a different installation
The Terminal F work is not DFW’s only recent use of prefabricated construction, though the projects differ. At Terminal A, seven pre-built modules were transported more than 1.5 miles to a pier-expansion site in 2024. DFW said those modules had more than 10,000 feet, or 65 percent, of their mechanical, electrical and plumbing work completed before transport. The Terminal F milestone, by contrast, involved lifting six modules into place along the existing Skylink guideway, according to the airport’s accounts of the Terminal A project and the Terminal F lifts.
The airport’s traffic figures offer broader context for its expansion plans, but do not establish why any particular project was undertaken. Federal Aviation Administration data show DFW recorded 42,351,316 enplanements in 2024, up 7.91 percent from 39,246,212 in 2023, according to the FAA’s annual statistics.
Terminal F’s expanded plan
When construction began in November 2024, Terminal F was planned as a 15-gate project with a $1.6 billion budget. DFW and American Airlines expanded the plan in May 2025: the current estimate is $4 billion for 31 gates, all to be served by American Airlines. The first phase, with 15 gates, is expected to open in 2027. The planned terminal also includes passenger-processing facilities and is intended to support international operations and widebody aircraft; the final configuration is planned to connect to Terminal D by a walkway.
Terminal F is one part of DFW Forward. The airport said the capital plan included more than $12 billion in investments planned or underway across its facilities and infrastructure. DFW also identified an approximately $3 billion effort to reimagine and expand Terminal C, alongside work to expand Terminal A, in its plan announcement. Those wider projects provide context for the scale of construction at DFW; the six Skylink modules remain a specific milestone, with station integration still to come.
