History
Hobby Airport opened in 1927 as a private landing field in a 600-acre (240 ha) pasture known as W.T. Carter Field. The airfield was served by Braniff and Eastern Airlines. The site was acquired by the City of Houston and was named Houston Municipal Airport in 1937. The airport was renamed Howard R. Hughes Airport in 1938. Howard Hughes was responsible for several improvements to the airport, including its first control tower, built in 1938. The airport's name changed back to Houston Municipal because Hughes was living at the time and regulations did not allow federal improvement funds for an airport named after a living person.
The City of Houston opened and dedicated a new air terminal and hangar in 1940.
In 1950 Pan Am started a nonstop DC-4 flight to Mexico City. In 1954 an expanded terminal building opened to support the 53,640 airline flights that carried 910,047 passengers. The airport was renamed Houston International Airport the same year.
The April 1957 Official Airline Guide shows 26 weekday departures on Eastern, 20 Braniff (plus four departures a week to/from South America), nine Continental, nine Delta, nine Trans-Texas, four National, two Pan American and one American. There were nonstops to New York and Washington, but not to Chicago or Denver or anywhere west of there. Later in 1957 KLM started DC-7C flights to Amsterdam via Montreal; they later moved to Houston Intercontinental Airport (now George Bush Intercontinental Airport), where they remain today.
In 1967 the airport was renamed after former Texas governor William P. Hobby.
George Bush Intercontinental Airport was built in 1969 because of expansion limitations at Hobby, and all airlines at Hobby moved there. The Civil Aeronautics Administration recommended years earlier that Houston begin to plan to replace Hobby, since the airport was inadequate for the new travel market.
TranStar Airlines (Muse Air) corporate headquarters were on the airport property.
Hobby reopened to commercial aviation in 1971. In 2008 the airport handled 8.8 million passengers. Only US destinations and international destinations with border preclearance are served currently, but, starting in 2015, Southwest will open a new international terminal allowing it to fly to international destinations.
Read more about this topic: William P. Hobby Airport
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