History
Allentown Airport opened in 1929 and is one of the very few in the nation that still serves its community from its original location. Scheduled airline service began on September 16, 1935 by United Airlines with Boeing 247 service. At the time, the airport hangar served as the passenger terminal. The first terminal building at the airport was built in 1938 as a Works Projects Administration (WPA) project.
During World War II the U. S. Navy V-5 flight training program was conducted at the airport in conjunction with ground training held at Muhlenberg College. In addition, Headquarters of Group 312 of the Civil Air Patrol was at Allentown-Bethlehem Airport. One of its activities was to provide a courier service for cargo defense plants. Allentown CAP pilots also patrolled the Atlantic coastline, and was active in recruiting young men for the air cadet program of the Army Air Force.
By January 1944, work on a new runway was completed and a Class A United States Weather Bureau station had been installed. About 1,000 Naval Aviation Cadets had been trained during 1943, and a large increase in the amount of civilian and military air traffic had occurred. In late July, the War Production Board approved the construction of a second story addition to the administration building. The building housed the Lehigh Aircraft Company, the weather bureau station, the Civil Aeronautic communications station, and the office and waiting room of United Air Lines. In August, the V-5 flight training program ended when the Navy decided to move all flight training to naval air bases under Navy pilots.
In the immediate postwar years, in April 1946, the Lehigh Airport Authority was created to own and manage the airport. This made the airport a public enterprise. 1948 saw the beginning of construction for a new passenger terminal, being finished in 1950. Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton (ABE) airport, as it was now called, also expanded passenger service by offering flights with United, Trans World Airlines (TWA), and Colonial airlines. DC-4 and DC-6 service was offered with the addition of 5,000 ft of runway.
Throughout the 1950s, both passenger service as well as air cargo service expanded at ABE. Eastern and Allegheny Airlines began service. In 1960, both Vice President Richard Nixon and Senator John F. Kennedy made campaign stops at ABE. Construction began in late 1972 for the new terminal, which was opened on December 14, 1975.
Construction began on the present-day terminal complex in 1973 and the project, which was designed by Wallace & Watson, was completed in 1976.
In March 2012, Direct Air suspended operations from the airport. The charter carrier was subject to Chapter 7 liquidation on April 12, 2012.
Today Lehigh Valley International Airport continues to serve the Lehigh Valley.
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Allentown PA Airport in the early 1930s before the addition of hard-surfaced runways.
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Naval pilot training graduation ceremony at the Allentown PA Airport - 1943
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Lehigh Valley International Airport before terminal expansion.
Read more about this topic: Lehigh Valley International Airport
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