Miami International Airport
Miami International Airport, also known as MIA and historically as Wilcox Field, is the primary international airport serving Miami and its surrounding metropolitan area, in the U.S. state of Florida. It hosts over 1,000 daily flights to 195 domestic and international destinations, including most countries in Central and South America and the Caribbean. The airport is in an unincorporated area in Miami-Dade County, Florida, west-northwest of downtown Miami, in metropolitan Miami, adjacent to the cities of Miami and Miami Springs, and the village of Virginia Gardens. Nearby cities include Hialeah, Doral, and the census-designated place of Fontainebleau.
In 2021, Miami International Airport became the busiest international cargo airport in the U.S. and the busiest U.S. gateway for international passengers, surpassing John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City. As of 2021, it is the 10th busiest airport in the U.S. with 17,500,096 passengers for the year. It is Florida's busiest airport by total aircraft operations and total cargo traffic. The airport is American Airlines' third-largest hub and serves as its primary gateway to Latin America and the Caribbean. Miami also serves as a focus city for Avianca, Frontier Airlines, and LATAM, both for passengers and cargo operations.
In 2024, MIA Airport served nearly 56 million passengers and saw 3 million tons of cargo passing through MIA, recording three consecutive record years for passenger volume and five straight years of cargo volume.
Miami International Airport covers. It is South Florida's main airport for long-haul international flights and a hub for the Southeastern United States with passenger and cargo flights to cities throughout the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Asia. It is the largest gateway between the U.S. and Central, South America and the Caribbean and one of the largest airline hubs in the nation.
History
In June 1928, Pan American Airways acquired 116 acres of land on NW 36th Street for the purpose of building a privately owned and operated international airport in Miami, Florida. The establishment of a commercial airport and of regularly scheduled international passenger airline service by Pan Am was a transformative event for the City of Miami. By September 1928, Pan Am had begun to operate regularly scheduled Air Mail service between Miami and Havana. On January 9, 1929, Pan American Airport, also known as Pan American Field, was officially dedicated at a ceremony attended by thousands of residents and celebrities such as Amelia Earhart, who saw in the new airport the promise of a bright new future in international aviation for Miami. It was the first mainland airport in the United States to have international port of entry facilities. The passenger terminal building, designed by Delano & Aldrich of New York City, was the most advanced and luxurious in the country. Three hangars, two on the east and one on the west, provided housing and maintenance facilities for Pan Am's fleet of Sikorsky amphibian and Fokker aircraft.During the first few years of its operation, from late 1928 until late 1930, it was from this busy airport that Pan American Airways historically pioneered U.S. international passenger aviation, inaugurating regularly scheduled Air Mail and passenger airline service from the U.S. to the West Indies, Caribbean, and Central and South America. In the 1930s Pan American leased space at its airport to Eastern Air Lines. Eastern officially took up residence at the 36th Street Airport in August 1935.
In 1940, Intercontinent Corporation, owned by William Pawley, built an aircraft manufacturing plant on land acquired immediately east of Pan American Field. The City and County, eager to encourage the growth of an aircraft manufacturing industry in Miami, agreed to finance and build runways and ground facilities at the Intercontinent plant, including an east-west runway that extended from Le Jeune Road as far west as Pan American Field, where it intersected with Pan Am's east-west runway. National Airlines, which had been operating in Miami at Miami's city-owned Municipal Airport since 1937, moved to the 36th Street Airport in 1942. National used a terminal on LeJeune Road, across the street from the airport and would stop traffic on the road in order to taxi aircraft to and from its terminal. Miami Army Airfield opened in 1943 on 1400 acres of land acquired during World War II to the south of Pan American Field. The two airfields were listed in some directories as a single facility.
Following World War II, the Dade County Port Authority embarked on a long-planned airport expansion in order to meet Miami's increasing commercial aviation needs. On December 31, 1945, a formal agreement between the County and Pan Am transferring ownership of the airport to the County was signed, becoming effective at 1:00 AM on January 1, 1946. Thus ended any distinct identity of Pan American Field. It also acquired Intercontinent's former holdings, which were leased to Eastern Air Lines, and changed the name of the newly expanded airport to Miami International Airport. Pan American's former NW 36th Street terminal building continued to serve as the hub for the new Miami International Airport. Between 1945 and 1950, the Port Authority cobbled together thousands more acres adjacent to and south of the airport, including the Army’s former air base; the Seaboard Air Line Railroad property; and additional parcels, with the intention of meeting Miami’s future aviation needs. The result was a County-owned, Miami International Airport based at NW 36th Street that by 1948 had grown to 2500 acres. The former domed-roofed Pan Am terminal building was extensively remodeled and enlarged, the words “Miami International Airport” now curving across its façade. The new airport was officially dedicated January 4, 1950. United States Air Force Reserve troop carrier and rescue squadrons also operated from the airport from 1949 through 1959, when the last unit relocated to nearby Homestead Air Force Base. In the late 1940s, Pan Am and Eastern also expanded their bases at MIA on NW 36th Street, which made the airport the world's largest commercial aircraft maintenance and overhaul facility at the time.
In the 1950s, a continuing boom in post-World War II passenger aviation stretched the county’s expanded airport to capacity. Scheduled airlines had outstripped ships, trains and buses to become the state’s as well as the nation’s largest carriers of interstate and international traffic. Delta had joined Pan Am, Eastern and National to become MIA's "Big Four" carriers and the airport also served a host of smaller scheduled and non-scheduled airlines. A new jet age loomed. Plans for an entirely new airport, to be built from scratch on land south and east of the existing facility were set in motion. On February 1, 1959, after years of planning and construction, Miami's brand-new Miami International Airport was formally inaugurated at 20th Street, on what was dubbed Wilcox Field in honor of Port Authority attorney J. Mark Wilcox who had been instrumental in bringing the project to completion. No longer needed, the former domed-roofed terminal building on NW 36th Street was torn down in November 1962. This part of MIA along NW 36th Street is known today as MIA's north field.
When it was dedicated in 1959, MIA's new 20th Street Terminal was the largest central airport terminal in the world, with five concourses and a 270-room hotel. In 1961, the terminal was expanded with the addition of a sixth concourse on the south side, which was the first concourse at the airport to include jetways. By 1965, the original five concourses were renovated with jetways added to them.
The 20th Street Terminal was expanded in the 1970s. Parking garages were added just east of the terminal and Concourse B opened on the north side of the terminal in 1973 to accommodate the expansion of Eastern Air Lines. In 1977, Concourse E's satellite terminal opened. The satellite was originally connected with shuttle buses, though a people mover was built to connect the satellite in 1980.
Nonstop flights to Chicago and Newark started in late 1946, but nonstops didn't reach west beyond St. Louis and New Orleans until January 1962. Nonstop transatlantic flights to Europe began in 1970. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Air Florida had a hub at MIA, with a nonstop flight to London, England which it acquired from National upon the latter's merger with Pan Am. Air Florida ceased operations in 1982 after the crash of Air Florida Flight 90. British Airways flew a Concorde SST triweekly between Miami and London via Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C., from 1984 to 1991.
The terminal was further expanded in the 1980s. The original Concourses D and E were rebuilt early in the decade and Concourses B and F were expanded. Pedestrian bridges with moving walkways were built in 1985 connecting the parking garages with the third level of the terminal. Within the next few years, the moving walkway system on the third level was expanded to run along the full length of the terminal.
After former Apollo 8 astronaut Frank Borman became president of Eastern Air Lines in 1975, he moved Eastern's headquarters from Rockefeller Center in New York City to Building 16 in the northeast corner of MIA, Eastern's maintenance base. Eastern remained one of the largest employers in the Miami metropolitan area until ongoing labor union unrest, coupled with the airline's acquisition by Texas Air in 1986, ultimately forced the airline into bankruptcy in 1989. Eastern operated out of Concourses B through D on the north side of the terminal, where American's Concourse D stands today. Concourse E was the home for most international carriers, while Pan Am operated out of Concourses E and F.
American Airlines hub
Amid Eastern's turmoil, American Airlines CEO Robert Crandall sought a new hub in order to utilize new aircraft which AA had on order. AA studies indicated that Delta Air Lines would provide strong competition on most routes from Eastern's hub at Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Atlanta, but that MIA had many key routes only served by Eastern. American Airlines announced that it would establish a base at MIA in August 1988. Lorenzo considered selling Eastern's profitable Latin America routes to AA as part of a Chapter 11 reorganization of Eastern in early 1989 but backed out in a last-ditch effort to rebuild the MIA hub. The effort quickly proved futile, and American Airlines purchased the routes in a liquidation of Eastern which was completed in 1990. Later in the 1990s, American transferred more employees and equipment to MIA from its failed domestic hubs at Nashville, Tennessee, and Raleigh–Durham, North Carolina. The hub grew from 34 daily departures in 1989 to 157 in 1990, 190 in 1992, and a peak of 301 in 1995, including long-haul flights to Europe and South America. Today Miami is American's largest air freight hub and is the main connecting point in the airline's north–south international route network.In December 1992, South African Airways launched flights to Johannesburg via Cape Town using a Boeing 747. The company's codeshare agreement with American Airlines supported the route. The carrier later decided to codeshare with Delta Air Lines instead, which operated a hub in Atlanta. Consequently, South African replaced its Miami service with a flight to Atlanta in January 2000.
Concourse A was built on the northeast side of the terminal in 1995, and Concourse H was rebuilt in 1997. Concourse J was built in August 2007 along with an expansion of the terminal on the south side.
American began the development of the current North Terminal in the 1990s. Concourses B and C were demolished as part of the project with Concourse A becoming the eastern end of the expanded Concourse D. Although the terminal was originally scheduled to be completed in 2004, numerous delays arose in the construction process, and Miami-Dade County took over control of the project in 2005, at which time the project had a budget of $2.85 billion. The terminal was ultimately completed in 2011 and included Skytrain, an automated people mover system, as well as a wing for American Eagle commuter flights.