George Bush Intercontinental Airport - History

History

The site for Bush Intercontinental Airport was originally purchased by a group of civic-minded Houston businessmen in 1957 to preserve the site until the city of Houston could formulate a plan for a second airport. The holding company for the land was named the Jet Era Ranch Corporation, but a typo-graphical error transformed the words “Jet Era” into “Jetero” and the airport site subsequently became known as the Jetero airport site. Although the name Jetero was no longer used in official planning documents after 1961, the eastern entrance to the airport was named Jetero Boulevard. Most of Jetero Boulevard was subsequently renamed Will Clayton Parkway.

The City of Houston annexed the Bush Airport area in 1965. This annexation, along with the 1965 annexations of the Bayport area, the Fondren Road area, and an area west of Sharpstown, resulted in a total gain of 51,251 acres (20,741 ha) of land for the city limits.

Houston Intercontinental Airport, as it was originally known, opened in June 1969. All passenger traffic from William P. Hobby Airport moved to Intercontinental upon the airport's completion. Hobby remained open as a general aviation airport and reopened two years later when Southwest Airlines initiated domestic services.

Houston Intercontinental had been scheduled to open in 1967, but design changes regarding the terminals created cost overruns and construction delays. The prime contractor, R.F. Ball Construction of San Antonio, sued the city of Houston for $11 million in damages, but assistant city attorney Joseph Guy Rollins, Jr. successfully defended the municipality on appeal to the Texas Supreme Court.

In the late 1980s, Houston City Council considered a plan to rename the airport after Mickey Leland—an African-American congressman who died in an aviation accident in Ethiopia. Instead of renaming the whole airport, the city named Mickey Leland International Arrivals Building, which would later become Mickey Leland Terminal D, after the congressman. Houston renamed the airport George Bush Intercontinental Airport/Houston, after George H. W. Bush, the 41st President of the United States.

On August 28, 1990, Continental Airlines agreed to build its maintenance center at George Bush Intercontinental Airport; Continental agreed to do so because the city of Houston agreed to provide city-owned land near the airport so that Continental could build its maintenance facility there.

As of 2007, Terminals A and B remain from the original design of the airport. Lewis W. Cutrer Terminal C opened in 1981, the Mickey Leland International Arrivals Building (now called Terminal D) opened in May 1990, and the new Terminal E partially opened on June 3, 2003. The rest of Terminal E opened on January 7, 2004. Terminal D is the arrival point for all international flights arriving into Houston except for flights operated by United Airlines which uses Terminal E. Terminal D also held customs and INS until the opening of the new Federal Inspection Service (FIS) building, completed on January 25, 2005.

On January 7, 2009, a Continental Airlines Boeing 737–800 departing Bush Intercontinental was the first U.S. commercial jet to fly on a mix of conventional jet fuel and biofuel.

In December 2009 the Houston City Council approved a plan to allow Midway Cos. to develop 10 acres (4.0 ha) of land owned by Houston Airport System on the grounds of Bush Airport. Midway plans to develop a travel center for the airport's rental car facility. The city dictated that the developer needed to place a convenience store and gas station facility, a flight information board, a fast casual restaurant, and a sit-down restaurant. Beyond the required buildings, the developer plans to add an office facility between 20,000 square feet (1,900 m2) and 40,000 square feet (3,700 m2) and additional retail; the developer may add a hotel.

In 2011 Continental Airlines began service to Lagos; this was the airport's first nonstop flight to Africa.

The airport was to become the fourth in the world, after Dubai International Airport, Doha International Airport, and OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg, to service all six continents when first services commenced to Auckland, New Zealand but plans for the Auckland service have been put on hold (as of June 2012) because of new international flights at Hobby Airport (to be operated by Southwest Airlines). United Airlines has postponed the introduction of this service owing to delays associated with the Boeing 787.

Houston has become the 6th US city to have Airbus A380 service when Lufthansa transitioned its Houston-Frankfurt route from a 747-400 to an A380 service on August 1, 2012. Houston will also gain new nonstop flights to Turkey when Turkish Airlines will launch nonstop service to Istanbul on April 1, 2013.