This is what the finished Terminal 8 was supposed to look like when initially conceived. The renderings offered by American today (see below) suggest they are really only adding 2 gates and "re-gating" (aka reducing) some of the regional jet gates to create 3 more wide-body capable gates. Total gate count at T8 will likely stay even or go down. It's about the absolute minimum expansion they could do to accommodate BA. They mention that some of the investment will go towards lounges which in all likelihood means that they will be expanding the current Flagship lounge (while probably rebranding it as a One World lounge). I would not be surprised to see them also offer a dedicated OneWorld First lounge given the relatively large amount of 1st class seats that BA still flies to LHR.

The elimination of the regional jet gates suggests that the number of non-stop domestic locations served by AA from JFK will be reduced, perhaps substantially, which may limit its connecting value to passengers from the UK. This would be in line with AA's move to push more northeast US connecting traffic through PHL. JFK seems destined to become focused almost entirely on O&D traffic for AA in contrast to Delta and JetBlue which both appear to be committed to keeping JFK as a key connecting hub.