New installations showcase Utah’s natural beauty at Salt Lake City airport

Thousands of travelers walked through Salt Lake City International Airport on Tuesday, many unaware they were among the first to step inside the third completed phase of the airport’s development program.
No longer do travelers need to break a sweat getting from the terminal to Concourse B. The days of marathon sprinting to make your flight are over.
The airport’s newest installation is a tunnel that “finally get(s) to cut that walk in half, and that’s something that we can all cheer about,” said Steve Sisneros, the vice president of airport affairs for Southwest Airlines.
“While we won’t get the steps in, we’ll be able to have a quicker commute from our curb, and our customers are so happy to get to the B gates and fly to places that are important in their lives,” he added.
For many, the new walkway comes with a sigh of relief.
“We like to think of Salt Lake City and the walks here, though, as reasonable and good warmup for your knees when you’re going to go skiing or hiking,” Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall said Tuesday, emphasizing that walking distance is one of the biggest complaints they receive regarding the airport’s layout.
When she entered the new tunnel for the first time, Mendenhall told the crowd gathered in Concourse B, “I felt like screaming and leaping with joy as I came down the elevator.”
“We set out to build an airport that is sustainable, highly functional and inspiring,” she added. “I think that we can all agree at this point — and looking forward to more openings east of us in the future — we continue to succeed on all three of those points.”
Though most travelers who fly into the airport are there simply to catch a connecting flight, “it would be hard to fly in and out of this airport and not know that you were in Salt Lake or in Utah,” Bill Wyatt, the executive director of the SLC Airport said at the unveiling ceremony.
That’s because artist Gordon Huether, who has been working on the airport’s redesign for a decade, incorporated Utah’s renowned natural landscape into its architecture.
In his remarks Tuesday, Huether said that the airport’s landscape is embedded with “the natural beauty of Utah.” From the white canyon ridges along the walls and benches to the brand new river tunnel that takes you from concourse A to B, immersing travelers in warm blue lights as they head to their flights.
“Art has the ability to reduce the stress of travel,” he said. “Art elevates the human spirit and can create an inspiring experience which you don’t usually hear about when you go into an airport.”
In addition to the building’s architecture, Huether’s sculpture “Northern Light” was unveiled to the public. The artwork will project different colors throughout the day by way of sunlight and will have light projected on it at night.
But the “Northern Light” wasn’t the only natural wonder unveiled Tuesday morning. Ally the Allosaurus also made her debut.
In a partnership with the Natural History Museum of Utah, “a project that’s been 150 million years in the making,” made its way into Utah’s largest airport, Jason Cryan, executive director of the museum, said before the surprise unveiling of the dinosaur fossil skeleton.
Ally, or Allosaurus fragilis, was an apex predator during the Jurassic period and is also Utah’s state fossil. According to Cryan, the museum is home to the largest source of Allosaurus fossils in the world.
“The Natural History Museum of Utah has long dreamed of having a presence here at the Salt Lake City International Airport,” Cryan said. “To share an icon of Utah’s rich natural or cultural history with millions of people who are passing through this place each year.”