What’ll change at Hilton Head airport once terminal opens? Will flights be added
As other airports across the U.S. gear up for the busy holiday travel season, Hilton Head Island Airport is entering its slow time of year.
But as the passenger count winds down, the airport is plugging away at a multi-million dollar expansion project that will drastically change its capacity when the first phase is done in 2026.
The airport’s offseason, which is generally from the end of October until April, is when airlines wind down their routes to places like Philadelphia and Chicago, waiting until the winter passes to bring them back.
Of the 222,322 travelers who used the airport last year, nearly 50% passed through the terminal between May and August.
Hilton Head is adding a new 27,000-square-foot terminal building to its existing 18,000-square-foot facility, making more room for screening, gate seating and retail. This phase of the project is scheduled to be completed in April; currently, the new terminal building is up and crews are working on the inside.
Phase two, which will happen when phase one is finished, will be a remodel of the current terminal. The facility hasn’t been renovated since the 1990s. After a 2018 runway expansion more than doubled the airport’s passenger count in just a year, the need for upgrades became clearer than ever.
“In the summertime, you really feel the pinch with the customers and travelers,” Jon Rembold, Beaufort County airports director, said.
There’s no start date for phase two as of November 2025, Rembold said. But even just the first phase will be a game changer.
It will give the airport two security checkpoint lines instead of one, more retail options and gates with more breathing room. The new space will also have a relief area for service animals and jet bridges to make boarding easier for passengers.
“You’ll have almost the same amount of room at each gate as we have in total now,” Rembold said.
Where can you fly now?
Hilton Head Island Airport currently offers year-round, daily service to Charlotte via American Airlines. It also offers seasonal service to Philadelphia, Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Washington, D.C. and Chicago O’Hare International Airport via American, and daily, seasonal flights to Atlanta and New York LaGuardia Airport on Delta Air Lines.
United Airlines also connects Hilton Head Island with Newark and O’Hare every day on a seasonal basis.
What will change?
Currently, passengers flying out of the airport walk into the terminal, check their bags and get into the security line. In the summer, the Transportation Security Administration line can pile up to the front door, Rembold said; there’s currently no separate line for TSA PreCheck travelers.
Once they get past security, passengers enter the rest of the terminal. One gate, a place for concessions and the restrooms are located inside a modular building that’s sort of a temporary space. The airport added a modular hold room for planes after jet service began in 2018.
Passengers board planes on the runway, in a process known as “surface boarding.” Instead of entering planes through a covered jet bridge, they board by walking up a switchback ramp leading to the door of the aircraft.
“We’re in a pre-9/11 building, so it’s old, and it’s small,” Rembold said.
Things will change drastically once phase one is complete, he said. Passengers checking bags will still go up to the counters like they do now, but passengers without bags can walk right into the new building and get in the TSA line. There will be two screening lines – one for TSA PreCheck and one for general boarding – and once passengers are through security they’ll have more food and beverage options and roomier gates.
What comes next?
Rembold said part of his job is to work with the airport’s existing carriers and possible new ones about adding more service.
The northeast and Ohio are the biggest tourism feeder markets to Hilton Head Island, he said, so there’s a lot of opportunity there.
“New York, Boston and Washington D.C. are huge, Chicago is huge,” he said. “We had Dallas-Fort Worth a couple of years ago with American, and we’d love to have that back. That’s another good one, and those all work within the existing network.”
Charlie Clark, vice president of communications for the Hilton Head Island and Bluffton Chamber of Commerce, said that convenience and ease of travel for passengers matters more than ever today.
“The northeast has long been one of Hilton Head Island’s strongest visitor markets, and some media outlets have referred to the island as ‘the Hamptons of the South,’” Clark said. “Having nonstop air service directly onto the island from key cities like New York, Chicago and others is a big advantage.”
This story was originally published November 20, 2025 at 6:00 AM.