History
Memphis Municipal Airport opened on a 200-acre (81 ha) plot of farmland just over seven miles (10 km) from downtown Memphis. During its early years the airport had three hangars and an unpaved runway; passenger and air mail service was provided by American Airlines and Chicago and Southern Air Lines (acquired by Delta Air Lines in 1953). In 1939 Eastern Air Lines arrived; that March Eastern had one departure a day to Muscle Shoals and beyond, American had four east/west and C&S had four north/south.
During World War II the United States Army Air Force Air Transport Command 4th Ferrying Group used Memphis while sending new aircraft overseas. In April 1951 the runways were 6000-ft 2/20, 6530-ft 9/27, 4370-ft 14/32 and 4950-ft 17/35 (the airport was all north of Winchester Rd during the 1950s).
The April 1957 OAG shows 64 weekday departures: 25 on Delta, 18 American, 7 Southern, 5 Eastern, 4 Braniff, 3 Trans-Texas and 2 Capital. The first scheduled jet flights were Delta 880s ORD-MEM-MSY and back, starting in July–August 1960.
The current terminal was designed by Mann & Harrover and cost $6.5 million. It opened on June 7, 1963 and Memphis Municipal changed its name to Memphis International in 1969, but the airport had no non-stop international routes until 1985-86 when Republic Airlines began service to Mexico. The terminal was expanded for $31.6 million in 1974, adding two new concourses and extending the others, which were designed by Roy P. Harrover & Associates. The airport had no non-stop inter-continental routes until 1995 when KLM began service to Amsterdam. Flights to Amsterdam ended on September 3, 2012 as a part of Delta's cutbacks in Memphis. Delta originally planned to operate the flight on a seasonal basis but have no plans to resume service.. This leaves the airport without any international passenger flights arriving or departing from its terminal.
Southern Airways became an important regional carrier at Memphis in the 1960s; it merged into Republic Airlines in 1979. Republic established Memphis as a network hub in 1985 before merging into Northwest Airlines in 1986. In 2008, Delta Air Lines bought Northwest and rebranded the Memphis operation under the Delta name.
Federal Express (now FedEx Express) began operations in Memphis in 1973. It opened its current "SuperHub" facility on the north side of the airport in 1981.
In 2008, the airport began construction on an expansion of its control tower and parking garages. The new control tower cost $72.6 million and stands at 336 feet, more than double that of the old tower. Upon completion in 2011, it stood as the third-tallest control tower in the United States An $81 million, 7-story parking garage is also under construction replacing two surface lots and adding 6,500 parking spaces. An additional $11 million were spent on a covered moving walkway connecting the garages to the terminal.
Since 2009 the airport has been a hub for small regional airline, SeaPort Airlines which provides single-engine plane service to a number of communities in Arkansas through the Essential Air Service program. SeaPort Airlines is based out of the private aviation terminal, not the main passenger terminal.
Read more about this topic: Memphis International Airport
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