Construction is underway on a $79 million commercial passenger terminal at McKinney National Airport, and commercial flights are scheduled to begin Nov. 11.
The terminal is 46,000 square feet with four gates. When it opens, McKinney National becomes the third commercial airport serving the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
Houston-based Avelo Airlines will launch the service, with nonstop flights to Las Vegas and to four Florida cities: Fort Lauderdale, Fort Myers, Orlando and Tampa.
Airport Director Ken Carley framed the project as a response to demand. "We're responding to aeronautical demand and uses for aviation in the region," he said. The airport estimates a catchment of roughly 2 million annual enplanements from the surrounding area, in what is the fastest-growing county in Texas and in the country.
The part that is easy to miss
This is not the terminal McKinney voters were asked about.
In May 2023, 58.69 percent of voters rejected a $200 million bond that would have funded a larger commercial terminal. City officials afterward advanced a smaller project, the 46,000-square-foot building now going up, using alternative financing rather than the rejected bond.
The city's position has been that voters rejected a financing mechanism rather than the project itself. Opponents have argued the result was set aside.
