John F. Kennedy International Airport
John F. Kennedy International Airport is a major international airport serving New York City and its metropolitan area. JFK Airport is located on the southwestern shore of Long Island, in Queens, New York City, bordering Jamaica Bay. It is the busiest of the seven airports in the New York airport system, the sixth-busiest airport in the United States, and the busiest international commercial airport in North America. The airport, which covers, is the largest in the New York metropolitan area. Over 90 airlines operate from JFK Airport, with nonstop or direct flights to destinations on all six permanently inhabited continents.
JFK Airport is located in the Jamaica neighborhood of Queens, southeast of Midtown Manhattan. The airport features five passenger terminals and four runways. It is primarily accessible by car, bus, shuttle, or other vehicle transit via the JFK Expressway or Interstate 678, or by train. JFK is a hub for American Airlines and Delta Air Lines as well as the primary operating base for JetBlue. The airport is also a former hub for Braniff, Eastern, Flying Tigers, National, Northeast, Northwest, Pan Am, Seaboard World, Tower Air, and TWA.
The facility opened in 1948 as New York International Airport and was commonly known as Idlewild Airport. Following the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963, the airport was renamed John F. Kennedy International Airport in tribute to him.
History
Construction
What would become known as John F. Kennedy International Airport opened in 1948 as New York International Airport though it was commonly known as Idlewild Airport after the Idlewild Beach Golf Course that it displaced. It was built to relieve LaGuardia Field, which had become overcrowded after its 1939 opening. In late 1941, mayor Fiorello La Guardia announced that the city had tentatively chosen a large area of marshland on Jamaica Bay, which included the Idlewild Golf Course as well as a summer hotel and a landing strip called the Jamaica Sea-Airport, for a new airfield. Title to the land was conveyed to the city at the end of December 1941. Construction began in 1943, though the airport's final layout was not yet decided upon.About US$60 million was initially spent with governmental funding, but only of the Idlewild Golf Course site were earmarked for use. The project was renamed Major General Alexander E. Anderson Airport in 1943 after a Queens resident who had commanded a Federalized National Guard unit in the southern United States and died in late 1942. The renaming was vetoed by Mayor La Guardia and reinstated by the New York City Council; in common usage, the airport was still called "Idlewild". In 1944, the New York City Board of Estimate authorized the condemnation of another for Idlewild. The Port of New York Authority leased the Idlewild property from the City of New York in 1947 and maintains this lease today. In March 1948, the City Council changed the official name to New York International Airport, Anderson Field, but the common name remained "Idlewild" until December 24, 1963. The airport was intended as the world's largest and most efficient, with "no confusion and no congestion".
Early operations
The first flight from Idlewild was on July 1, 1948, with the opening ceremony attended by U.S. President Harry S. Truman and Governor of New York Thomas E. Dewey, who were both running for president in that year's presidential election. The Port Authority cancelled foreign airlines' permits to use LaGuardia, forcing them to move to Idlewild during the next couple of years. Idlewild at the time had a single terminal building; by 1949, the terminal building was being expanded to. Further expansions would come in following years, including a control tower in 1952, as well as new and expanded buildings and taxiways.Idlewild opened with six runways and a seventh under construction; runways 1L and 7L were held in reserve and never came into use as runways. Runway 31R is still in use; runway 31L opened soon after the rest of the airport and is still in use; runway 1R closed in 1957 and runway 7R closed around 1966. Runway 4 opened June 1949 and runway 4R was added ten years later. A smaller runway 14/32 was built after runway 7R closed and was used until 1990 by general aviation, STOL, and smaller commuter flights.
The first jet airliner to land at Idlewild was an Avro Jetliner flying from Malton Airport in Toronto carrying the world's first cargo of jet airmail on April 18, 1950. A 1951 policy instituted by the Port Authority effectively prohibited jets from landing at the city's airports. After tests demonstrating that it was no noisier than the loudest of the then-current propeller plane, approval was granted for a Sud Aviation Caravelle prototype to be the next jet airliner to land at Idlewild, on May 2, 1957. Later in 1957, the Soviet Union sought approval for two jet-powered Tupolev Tu-104 flights carrying diplomats to land at Idlewild; the Port Authority did not allow them, saying noise tests had to be done first.
In 1951, the airport averaged 73 daily airline operations ; the October 1951 Airline Guide shows nine domestic departures a day on National and Northwest. Much of Newark Airport's traffic shifted to Idlewild when Newark was temporarily closed in February 1952 after a series of three plane crashes in the two preceding months in Elizabeth, all of which had fatalities; flights were shifted to Idlewild and La Guardia, which were both able to have planes take off and land over the water, rather than over the densely populated areas surrounding Newark Airport. The airport remained closed in Newark until November 1952, with new flight patterns that took planes away from Elizabeth. L-1049 Constellations and DC-7s appeared between 1951 and 1953 and did not use LaGuardia for their first several years, bringing more traffic to Idlewild. The April 1957 Airline Guide cites a total of 1,283 departures a week, including about 250 from Eastern Air Lines, 150 from National Airlines and 130 from Pan American.
Separate terminals
By 1954, Idlewild had the highest volume of international air traffic of any airport globally. The Port of New York Authority originally planned a single 55-gate terminal, but the major airlines did not agree with this plan, arguing that the terminal would be far too small for future traffic. Architect Wallace Harrison then designed a plan for each major airline at the airport to be given its own space to develop its own terminal. This scheme made construction more practical, made terminals more navigable, and introduced incentives for airlines to compete with each other for the best design. The revised plan met airline approval in 1955, with seven terminals initially planned. Five terminals were for individual airlines, one was for three airlines, and one was for international arrivals. In addition, there would be an 11-story control tower, roadways, parking lots, taxiways, and a reflecting lagoon in the center. The airport was designed for aircraft up to gross weight The airport had to be modified in the late 1960s to accommodate the Boeing 747's weight.The International Arrivals Building, or IAB, was the first new terminal at the airport, opening in December 1957. The building was designed by SOM. The terminal stretched nearly and was parallel to runway 7R. The terminal had "finger" piers at right angles to the main building allowing more aircraft to park, an innovation at the time. The building was expanded in 1970 to accommodate jetways. Nonetheless, by the 1990s the overcrowded building was showing its age and it did not provide adequate space for security checkpoints. It was demolished in 2000 and replaced with Terminal 4.
United Airlines and Delta Air Lines opened Terminal 7, a SOM design similar to the IAB, in October 1959. It was demolished in 2008.
Eastern Air Lines opened their Chester L. Churchill-designed Terminal 1 in November 1959. The terminal was demolished in 1995 and replaced with the current Terminal 1.
American Airlines opened Terminal 8 in February 1960. It was designed by Kahn and Jacobs and had a stained-glass facade designed by Robert Sowers, the largest stained-glass installation in the world until 1979. The facade was removed in 2007 as the terminal was demolished to make room for the new Terminal 8; American cited the prohibitive cost of removing the enormous installation.
Pan American World Airways opened the Worldport in 1960, designed by Tippetts-Abbett-McCarthy-Stratton. It featured a large, elliptical roof suspended by 32 sets of radial posts and cables; the roof extended beyond the base of the terminal to cover the passenger loading area. It was one of the first airline terminals in the world to feature jetways that connected to the terminal and that could be moved to provide an easy walkway for passengers from the terminal to a docked aircraft. Jetways replaced the need to have to board the plane outside via airstairs that descend from an aircraft, truck-mounted mobile stairs, or wheeled stairs. The Worldport was demolished in 2013.
Trans World Airlines opened the TWA Flight Center in 1962, designed by Eero Saarinen with a distinctive winged-bird shape. With the demise of TWA in 2001, the terminal remained vacant until 2005 when JetBlue and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey financed the construction of a new 26-gate terminal partly encircling the Saarinen building. Called Terminal 5, the new terminal opened on October 22, 2008. T5 is connected to the Saarinen central building through the original passenger departure-arrival tubes that connected the building to the outlying gates. The original Saarinen terminal, also known as the head house, has since been converted into the TWA Hotel.
Northwest Orient, Braniff International Airways, and Northeast Airlines opened a joint terminal in November 1962. It was demolished in 2023 to make way for a new Terminal 1.
National Airlines opened the Sundrome in 1969. The terminal was designed by I. M. Pei. It was unique for its use of all-glass mullions dividing the window sections, unprecedented at the time. On October 30, 2000, United Airlines and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey announced plans to redevelop this terminal and the TWA Flight Center as a new United terminal. Terminal 6 was used by JetBlue from 2001 until JetBlue moved to Terminal 5 in 2008. The Sundrome was demolished in October 2011 to make room for additional gates at JetBlue's Terminal 5.