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Indianapolis International Airport
Airport in Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Indianapolis International Airport (IATA: IND, ICAO: KIND, FAA LID: IND) is an international airport located seven miles (11 km) southwest of Downtown Indianapolis in Marion County, Indiana, United States.[2] It is owned and operated by the Indianapolis Airport Authority, and the airport serves over 50 non-stop destinations throughout North America, the Caribbean and Europe across multiple carriers. As of 2024, IND is the 46th-busiest airport in the U.S. and the busiest in Indiana with 5,180,917 passengers.
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The airport occupies 7,700 acres (3,116 ha) in Wayne and Decatur townships in Marion County.[2][3] IND is home to the second largest FedEx Express hub in the world; only the FedEx SuperHub in Memphis, Tennessee, surpasses its cargo traffic. Largely because of FedEx's activity, IND consistently ranks among the top 10 busiest U.S. airports in terms of air cargo throughput.[4][5][6] Republic Airways is also headquartered at the airport, and Allegiant Air maintains Indianapolis as a focus city.
The Indianapolis Air Route Traffic Control Center (ZID), one of 22 established FAA area control centers, is located on the airport property's north side.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems for 2025–2029 categorized it as a medium hub primary commercial service facility.[7]
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History
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Beginnings
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Indianapolis Municipal Airport opened on September 24, 1931,[8] replacing the older Stout Field as the primary city airport. The airport was initially built on about 320 acres (130 ha) of land in the southwestern edge of the city, with an additional 627 acres (254 ha) reserved for future expansions at the airport.[9] In 1944, it was renamed Weir Cook Municipal Airport, after US Army Air Forces Col. Harvey Weir Cook of Wilkinson, Indiana, who had become a flying ace during World War I with seven victories and had died flying a P-39 over New Caledonia in World War II.
Indianapolis was one of many stops along the first transcontinental air/rail service between Los Angeles and New York that was started by Transcontinental Air Transport (TAT) in 1929. TAT would later become Trans World Airlines (TWA) and continued to serve IND until their merger into American Airlines in 2001.
Since 1962, the airport has been owned and operated by the Indianapolis Airport Authority (IAA). The IAA has an eight-member board with members appointed by the mayor of Indianapolis and other officials from Marion, Hendricks, and Hamilton counties in central Indiana. In 1976, the board renamed the airport Indianapolis International Airport.[10]
From 1957 to 2008, the passenger terminal was on the east side of the airfield off High School Road. This now-demolished facility was renovated and expanded many times, notably in 1968 (Concourses A and B), 1972 (Concourse D), and 1987 (Concourse C and the attached parking garage). This complex, along with the International Arrivals Terminal (opened in 1976) on the north side of the airfield (off Pierson Drive), was replaced by the Col. H. Weir Cook Terminal on November 12, 2008.[11]
The April 1957 Official Airline Guide (OAG) shows 82 weekday departures: 24 Eastern, 22 TWA, 15 Delta, 11 American, 9 Lake Central and 1 Ozark. Eastern had a nonstop to Atlanta and one to Birmingham and TWA had two to New York-LaGuardia; no other nonstops reached beyond Chicago, St. Louis, Memphis, Louisville and Pittsburgh. The first jets were TWA Convair 880s in 1961. Westward nonstops did not reach beyond St. Louis until 1967 when TWA started a JFK-IND-LAX flight with a Boeing 707. In the mid-1970s, TWA ran a widebody Lockheed L-1011 on the nonstop flight to Los Angeles.[12]
Recent years
During the late 1980s and early 1990s, USAir (later US Airways) had a secondary hub in Indianapolis with non-stop jets to the West Coast, East Coast, and Florida and turboprop flights to cities around the Midwest. USAir peaked at 146 daily departures (including its prop affiliates), with 49% of all seats. USAir ended the hub in the late 1990s.[citation needed]
FedEx Express began its hub at the airport in 1988, with an expansion of the hub occurring ten years later. The hub employs around 4,000 people and has a sort capacity of nearly 100,000 packages per hour, making Indianapolis the largest FedEx hub in the world outside of the company's SuperHub in Memphis.[13]
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Indianapolis was a hub for then locally based ATA Airlines and its regional affiliate, Chicago Express/ATA Connection. After that airline entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in late 2004, operations at IND were cut, then eliminated in 2006.[14] ATA's demise gave Northwest Airlines an opportunity to expand operations, making Indianapolis a focus city with mainline flights to the West Coast, East Coast, and the South.[15] Northwest was later acquired by Delta Air Lines in 2008, and a decade later, Delta began service from Indianapolis to Paris in May 2018. This flight was the first ever non-stop transatlantic passenger flight out of Indianapolis.[16] The flight, DL500, was suspended in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[17]
In 1990, Air Canada began nonstop service from Indianapolis to Toronto Pearson International Airport, marking the first regularly scheduled international flight out of IND.[18] Air Canada Jazz, which operated the flight from 2001, would be retired by Air Canada in 2012, and service to IND would continue under the new Air Canada Express brand.
In 1994, BAA USA was awarded a 10-year contract to manage the Indianapolis International Airport. The contract was extended three years but was later cut a year short at the request of the BAA. Private management ended on December 31, 2007, and control reverted to IAA.[19][20] Also in 1994, United Airlines finished building its Indianapolis Maintenance Center[21] at a cost of US$600 million.[22] United later moved their maintenance operations to its sole maintenance hub located at San Francisco International Airport. Around 2006, runway 14/32 was shortened from 7,604 feet (2,318 m) to its present length because the south end was not visible from the new control tower.[23]
A new 1.2-million-square-foot (110,000 m2) midfield passenger terminal, which cost $1.1 billion, opened in 2008 between the airport's two parallel runways, southwest of the previous terminal and the crosswind runway. A new FAA Air Traffic Control Tower (ATCT) and Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON) building, the second tallest in the United States, opened in April 2006, the first component of the long-planned midfield complex. The Weir Cook Terminal itself opened for arriving flights on the evening of November 11, 2008, and for departures the following morning. HOK was its master designer, with AeroDesign Group (a joint venture of CSO Architects, SchenkelShultz Architecture, and ARCHonsortium) serving as the architect of record. Aviation Capital Management (Indianapolis), a subsidiary of BSA LifeStructures, was the airport's program manager. Hunt/Smoot Midfield Builders, a joint venture of Hunt Construction Group and Smoot Construction was the construction manager.[24] Thornton Tomasetti was the terminal's structural engineer along with Fink, Roberts and Petrie.[25] Syska Hennessy was the mechanical, electrical, & plumbing engineer.[25] In 2021, a six-person panel of Indianapolis members of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) identified the Col. H. Weir Cook Terminal among the ten most "architecturally significant" buildings completed in the city since World War II.[26]
A 162-acre (66 ha), 22 MW solar farm is at the airport. It was the largest airport solar farm in the world when the second phase opened in 2014.[27]
In August 2017, Allegiant Air announced it would open a $40 million aircraft base at the airport that would begin operations in February of the following year. The facility was to create 66 high-paying jobs by the end of year and house two Airbus aircraft.[28][29]
On October 21, 2024, Aer Lingus announced nonstop flights to Dublin, Ireland beginning May 2025, marking the first transatlantic flight out of Indianapolis since 2020.[30]
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Facilities
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Airport hotel
The Indianapolis Airport Authority voted on February 21, 2025, to build a new hotel at the airport. The 253-room Marriott Westin-branded hotel will connect to the west side of the terminal parking garage, allowing direct access to the airport terminal. The hotel will feature a full-service restaurant, a seventh-floor lounge area with an airfield view open to the public, a fitness center, approximately 10,000 square feet (930 m2) of meeting space, and dedicated parking with valet. Groundbreaking for the Westin Indianapolis Airport hotel began in June 2025,[31] with anticipated completion of the almost $206 million project in December 2027.[32][33][34]
Terminal
Indianapolis International Airport has a single terminal with two concourses and a total of 39 gates.[35] The current terminal opened in 2008 and is named in honor of Col. Harvey Weir Cook. It was one of the first designed and built in the U.S. following the September 11 attacks.[36] International arrivals are processed in Concourse A.[35]
- Concourse A contains 20 gates (Gates A3-A8, A10-A17, A21-A25).[35] It serves Aer Lingus, Air Canada, Delta Air Lines, Frontier Airlines, Spirit Airlines, Sun Country Airlines, and United Airlines.[37]
- Concourse B contains 19 gates (Gates B3-B10, B13-B17, B20-B25).[35] It serves Alaska Airlines, Allegiant Air, American Airlines, and Southwest Airlines.[37]
Runways
The airport has three runways: two parallel and one crosswind. The crosswind runway, 14/32, is the shortest of the three at 7,278 feet (2,218 m). The newest runway is 5R/23L, completed in 2024 as part of a large expansion program. Indianapolis International Airport received a $26.6 million grant from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on August 2, 2024. The grant was one of the largest among airports selected to receive the latest round of funding. The funding was applied to the reconstruction of IND's Runway 5R-23L and Taxiway D to improve safety. The project, which included adding LED runway and taxiway lighting was completed in late 2024. The Indianapolis Airport Authority (IAA) spent approximately $38.6 million with 34 diverse businesses for phase one and two. The construction project has created more than 3,200 jobs, across all three phases of the reconstruction.[38][39][40]
The airport's current ~348-foot (106-meter) control tower opened in 2006 at a cost of about $38 million. The tower is the fourth tallest in the United States and the fourteenth tallest in the world.[41][42]
Ground transportation
Ten rental car operations (Alamo, Avis, Budget, Dollar, Enterprise, Hertz, National, Payless, Sixt, and Thrifty) and the Ground Transportation Center (where information about limousine, shuttle bus, hotel courtesy vehicles and other transportation services such as IndyGo bus service can be obtained) are located on the first floor of the attached parking garage. All pick-ups and drop-offs of rental vehicles also occur here, eliminating the need for shuttling customers to and from individual companies' remote processing facilities. The five-floor parking garage covers 11 acres (4.5 ha) on each of its levels. It features a light-filled center atrium complete with a piece of suspended artwork and contains moving sidewalks to speed pedestrians into and out of the terminal building itself.[43][44]
The Blue Line, a bus rapid transit route also operated by IndyGo, will have its western terminus at the airport. Groundbreaking for the new line began in February 2025 and the route is expected to be completed by 2028.[45]
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Airlines and destinations
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Top destinations
Airline market share
Annual traffic and cargo
On-time performance (domestic major U.S. carriers only)
Airport employees
Number of airport employees at IND (December 2023)[100]
Passenger traffic trends
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Annual passenger traffic at IND airport.
See Wikidata query.
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Accidents and incidents
- On September 9, 1969, Allegheny Airlines Flight 853 on a Boston – Baltimore – Cincinnati – Indianapolis – St. Louis route, collided in midair with a Piper Cherokee during its descent over Fairland, Indiana, in Shelby County. The McDonnell Douglas DC-9-31 crashed into a cornfield near London, Indiana, killing all 78 passengers and four crew members on board. The student pilot who was flying the Cherokee was also killed.[101]
- On October 20, 1987, a United States Air Force A-7D Corsair II crashed into a Ramada Inn near the airport after the pilot was forced to eject due to an engine malfunction. Ten people were killed, nine of them hotel employees.[102]
- On October 31, 1994, a ATR 72–212 operating American Eagle Flight 4184, which was flying from Indianapolis to Chicago–O'Hare, crashed into a soybean field near the northwestern Indiana town of Roselawn, killing all 68 on board.
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See also
- List of airports in Indiana
- List of attractions and events in Indianapolis
- List of largest cargo airports in the United States
- List of tallest air traffic control towers in the United States
- List of the busiest airports in the United States
- List of tallest buildings in Indianapolis § Other structures
- Transportation in Indianapolis
References
External links
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