Indianapolis International Airport

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. It is owned and operated by the Indianapolis Airport Authority. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems for 2017–2021 categorized it as a medium hub primary commercial service facility.

Opened as Indianapolis Municipal Airport in 1931 and later known as Weir Cook Municipal Airport, Indianapolis International occupies about 7,700 acres (3,116 ha) in Wayne and Decatur townships in Marion County and Guilford Township in Hendricks County. It is the 45th busiest U.S. airport in terms of passenger traffic, serving 8.5 million passengers annually. As home to the second largest FedEx Express hub in the world, IND ranked as the seventh busiest U.S. airport in terms of air cargo throughput in 2015.

A $1.1 billion midfield passenger terminal opened in 2008 as one of the first designed and built in the U.S. following the September 11 attacks. The Colonel Harvey Weir Cook Terminal contains two concourses and 40 gates, connecting to 51 nonstop domestic and international destinations and averaging 145 daily departures.

History

Indianapolis Municipal Airport opened in 1931. In 1944, it was renamed Weir Cook Municipal Airport, after US Army Air Forces Col. Harvey Weir Cook of Wilkinson, Indiana, who became a flying ace during World War I with seven victories and died flying a P-39 over New Caledonia in World War II.

Since 1962, the airport has been owned and operated by the Indianapolis Airport Authority (IAA), 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.

In 2008, the board named the new main passenger facility the Col. H. Weir Cook Terminal and the new entrance road Col. H. Weir Cook Memorial Drive.

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 & 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.

The April 1957 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 LaGuardia; no other nonstops reached beyond Chicago, St. Louis, Memphis, Louisville and Pittsburgh. (Westward nonstops didn't reach beyond St. Louis until 1967; TWA started a JFK-IND-LAX 707 that year.) The first jets were TWA 880s in 1961.

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.

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.

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. Northwest was later absorbed by Delta Air Lines in late 2008.

In 1994, BAA 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.

Also in 1994, United Airlines finished building the Indianapolis Maintenance Center, at a cost of USD $600 million. 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 7604 feet to its present length because the south end was not visible from the new control tower.

In 2009, Republic Airways announced it would retain its maintenance hub and headquarters in Indianapolis after acquiring the much larger Frontier Airlines in Denver.

In August 2017, Allegiant Air announced it would open a $40 million aircraft base at Indianapolis International 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.

In September 2017, Delta Air Lines announced it would begin service from Indianapolis to Paris beginning in May 2018. This flight will be the first ever non-stop transatlantic passenger flight out of Indianapolis.

In October 2017, the airport announced that Frontier Airlines would move from Concourse B to Concourse A. The move occurred in January 2018.

Colonel Harvey Weir Cook Terminal

A new 1,200,000-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, 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 among CSO Architects, SchenkelShultz Architecture and ARCHonsortium) serving as 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. Thornton Tomasetti was the terminal's structural engineer along with Fink, Roberts and Petrie. Syska Hennessy was the mechanical, electrical, & plumbing engineer.

The new terminal, named in honor of Col. Harvey Weir Cook, has room for 44 domestic gates and 2 international gates (which can also function as domestic gates). Not all gate positions were used upon opening of the facility, to allow for future expansion by the airlines. The two gate concourse structures were built to allow for future expansion on their southwestern ends (which is why gates A1-A2 and B1-B2 do not yet exist).

The new terminal allows international arrivals to go through customs in the main passenger terminal; these passengers used to disembark in a separate building. Passengers arriving at gates A4 and A5 go to the U.S. Customs and Federal Inspection Station on the arrivals level via a dedicated and secured stairway, escalator, or elevator. After clearing customs, they exit into the south end of the main terminal's domestic baggage claim area.

The A concourse has a Delta Sky Club, the first airline lounge at Indianapolis International Airport since US Air closed its hub. The lounge opened on November 15, 2010.

Eight rental car operations 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.

The airport's master plan calls for a fourth (third parallel) runway to be built southeast of I-70 sometime in the future. Between 2002 and 2004 the Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) rebuilt a portion of this Interstate highway running through the south end of the airport's property. The realigned freeway allows a future taxiway bridge to the proposed fourth runway to cross overhead and has a new traffic interchange for the midfield terminal complex. This I-70 exit (#68) is now the airport's main entrance, replacing the entrance at Sam Jones Expressway (which was built as the Airport Expressway) and High School Road. Provision has been made for future Light Rail Transit (LRT) access to the Weir Cook terminal complex.[ failed verification]

International air service

The airport has passenger service to Canada, Mexico, Dominican Republic, and France, and one international passenger airline, Air Canada Express. International air cargo service is available to Canada, United Kingdom, Japan and France on FedEx Express, and to Luxembourg on Cargolux.

Airport management

The Indianapolis International Airport is owned and operated by the Indianapolis Airport Authority (IAA), a municipal corporation established in 1962. The IAA operates five other airports in the area: Indianapolis Downtown Heliport, Eagle Creek Airpark, Hendricks County Airport–Gordon Graham Field, Indianapolis Metropolitan Airport, and Indianapolis Regional Airport. The IAA board leadership is Barbara Glass serving as President, Steve Dillinger serving as vice president, and Alfred R. Bennett serving as Secretary.

Mario Rodriguez, an award-winning airport industry veteran, became the Executive Director / CEO of the Indianapolis Airport Authority in June 2014.

Economic development

In 2018, technology services and consulting company Infosys announced plans to build a U.S. training center at site of the former terminal building. The development will include an education center and residential facility, bringing 1,000 jobs to the area.

Text imported from Wikipedia article "Indianapolis International Airport" and modified on July 22, 2019 according to the CC-BY-SA 4.0 International license.