The $1B airport terminal: Sacramento's sparkling upgrade

— -- On October 6, seven airlines began serving passengers from a new $1 billion terminal at Sacramento International Airport. The new Central Terminal B, which replaces a worn, 44 year-old terminal slated for demolition, is actually two buildings: a soaring, glass-and-steel landside terminal with floor to ceiling windows, and an impressive, T-shaped, airside concourse with 19 gates.

The airlines operating in Central Terminal B are Aeromexico, Alaska/Horizon, American, Frontier, Hawaiian, JetBlue and Southwest. Delta, United/Continental and US Airways now operate out of Terminal A.

If your travels take you to the new terminal at Sacramento International Airport, here's what you'll find:

A sleek people-mover, with departures every two minutes, whisks passengers back and forth between the two buildings in just 45 seconds.

In addition to free Wi-Fi throughout the new terminal, the airside terminal offers pod-seating with plenty of built-in electrical outlets and USB plugs. The concourse is also dotted with banks of seats equipped with built-in cup holders.

Outside, just beyond the south end of the landside terminal, there's a nine-acre park with walking paths planted with native, drought-tolerant plants and trees designed to evoke the farmland, rivers and fields of the surrounding landscape. It's a great spot to get some fresh air, a bit of exercise and a good look at the new building.

Inside the terminal, passengers will find a large ticket lobby with common-use kiosks and - if they look up - a ceiling that incorporates strips of redwood reclaimed from a bridge that once stood in Sacramento County. Impossible to miss from pretty much anywhere in the pre-security part of the terminal is a giant, 56-foot-long, aluminum red rabbit suspended from the ceiling. Created by Lawrence Argent, the artist who did the 40-foot blue bear that appears to be peering into the Colorado Convention Center in Denver, the big red bunny in "Leap" is frozen in mid-jump on a trajectory leading right into a giant suitcase below. The suitcase has a vortex-like hole in it that is, apparently, the entrance-point for the rabbit, but visitors have already begun filling the vortex with coins, as if it were a wishing well.

In addition to a landside branch of the local and much-loved Old Soul Company bakery and coffee shop, the landside terminal offers several other dining and retail options, plus some additional treats. There's a small, tucked-away "Quiet Room" with a single, wavy bench facing a softly-lit blue wall. There's also a giant artwork by Christain Moeller that includes two 75-by-12-foot wood panels depicting the real faces of a half-dozen baggage handlers working at the airport. Elsewhere, there are colorful mosaics in the floor and, on the outside of the elevator shafts, animated scenery. And more than a dozen teak rocking chairs offer a comfortable place to wait for the meeters and greeters waiting on the transfer level for passengers arriving via the people-mover.