All the airports I remember traveling through have offered international flights, and call themselves international airports. (I thought maybe Milwaukee/MKE was national only, but it’s called General Mitchell International Airport, so they must have flights to some other country.)
So which US airport is the biggest – or busiest, with the most passengers and/or planes going through daily – that doesn’t call itself an international airport or have any regularly scheduled direct international flights? This includes Mexico and Canada, of course – I think a few flights to Mexico make Portland’s airport an international one, for example.
Just a WAG, but does LaGuardia Airport, in NY, have any international flights? I don’t believe it does, and that’s a pretty busy place. Then again, maybe it has flights to and from Canada.
The other East Coast airport with only domestic routes, IIRC, is National, in DC.
Yes, and according to World Airport Guides, “LGA handles domestic flights and international connections to and from the Pacific Rim, Europe and Latin America.” In fact, on that site it’s called LaGuardia International Airport, but the PANYNJ LaGuardia site doesn’t obviously mention international flights.
It’s not National – they have flights to Canada: “Twenty passenger airlines serve National. Daily nonstop service is currently authorized to 60 U.S. cities and direct service to 3 Canadian/Caribbean cities.”
As I understand it, the designation “international” means that an airport has full-time (or at least regularly scheduled) customs service available. The official terms include “designated,” “international,” “landing rights,” and “user fee” airports. Of course, there’s nothing to prevent me from naming the sidewalk in front of my house Kunilou International Airport.
You are correct that LaGuardia Airport and Reagan National don’t have “International” in their names, but they do have non-stop flights to Canada. Allaince Airport in Fort Worth was built specifically for cargo flights and has full-time Customs facilities.
The U.S. Customs service lists 317 “Ports of Entry” where Customs officials are equipped for inspections. The include airports in Vacaville, California; Burlinton, Vermont; Green Bay, Wisconsin; and Waukegon, Palwaukee and DuPage County airports in Illinois.
Far and away Van Nuys Airport has the most aircraft operations (takeoffs & landings) per year for a non-international airport. That site (the airport owner’s) says 504,303 total. This list ranks them 7th overall, ahead of places like Las Vegas, Heathrow, St. Louis, and Frankfurt. Of course, they’re a general aviation airport (and operations wasn’t one of the OP’s criteria anyway).
Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County doesn’t use ‘International’ in their name, but does have international flights. They served 32 million passengers in 2002 (from their web site under FAQ->Airport Info->Facts, or the ranking list linked above).
My guess for largest US non-international in terms of passengers :
John Wayne (aka Orange County) Airport, judging from its Nov. 2003 statistics, had about 8.5 million passengers last year. That’s pretty sizeable, comparable to airports like Charlotte, Sacramento, and Memphis.
In theory, one can enter the US and land at any airport. It is, however, more difficult to arrange for customs as some locations than others.
There are, in fact, no official government-sanctioned rules about what constitutes an “international” airport for the US. The term “international” being added to the name is solely at the discretion of the airport owners. You could have an airport named “Domestic Flights Only Airfield” with solely international flights and a fully staff customs office, or something like “Gary/Chicago International Airport” with NO scheduled airline service and darn few even local flights (said airport of that exact name and circumstance exists about 10 miles from my apartment).
To the exent the above is true, the OP question is meaningless. Since “international airport” has no regulatory definition, you may way to specifically define what YOU consider an “international airport” to make the question into a question that has a factual answer.
SDF is now called Louisville International Airport despite the fact that there are no international passenger flights in or out of there.
There are, however, numerous international cargo flights owing to the presence of the UPS Air Hub.
Interestingly enough the #12 airport in cargo traffic and the #12 airport in aircraft movements are just 90 miles apart and both located in Kentucky (SDF and CVG).
Canada? heh That doesn’t count. It’d be like me claiming a trip across the river here as being an international vacation. Hell, you can barely tell you’ve left Texas at all for the most part. Try crossing at Presidio sometime and see what I mean.
Heck, we’ve got as many of them here as they do there. It’s more like were all one BIG country. Besides, were all Americans. Sure there’s some culture variety but not any more so than what you’d find within the 50 states anyway.
Which US airport is the busiest – the most passengers traveling through daily – that doesn’t have any regularly scheduled direct international flights (incoming or outgoing)?
(Do we actually have an answer yet? Or just some good theories?)
Refering to the OP, here in Regina, our Airport (Regina International Airport) handles flights throughout Canada, and to major American centres such as St. Paul, MN. However, we actually have a fairly low number of flights in and out each day. When we hosted the Grey Cup in November, the number of passengers coming in only increased by 3000 for the week, and a HUGE deal was made of that.
I don’t claim this is authoritative, but the smallest one I’ve been in was in Burlington, VT. Two dinky luggage conveyer belts, parking lot instead of a garage… I was amazed at the “international” designation until I remembered the northern location. This was also several years ago, so for all I know they’ve got ten runways now. Probably not, though.
Gosh darn, now you’ve got ME curious… I’m not sure how to go about figuring out that question. I’ll give it some thought and maybe ask around the airport when I’m down there this morning to see if anyone there has any ideas.
I live near Myrtle Beach International Airport. We don’t have any international flights. The media have always said that it’s designated an international airport because it’s runway has the capability to handle large, international-flight sized planes (747’s???). The reason the runway has this capability is because it’s on a (now-closed) airforce base.
We have one runway, two baggage belts, one restaurant, one newsagent. There are three gates. There are no customs agents.
