History
Grand Rapids' first airport broke ground in November 1919, four miles (6.4 km) south of downtown. This was eight years after the area witnessed its first airplane landing which was a Wright biplane at Comstock Park State Fairgrounds on September 10, 1911. The airport was operated by the Kent County Board of Supervisors.
The first regularly scheduled air service in the United States was between Grand Rapids and Detroit (actually Dearborn's Ford Airport) on a Ford-Stout monoplane named Miss Grand Rapids, which commenced July 26, 1926. The airport expanded across 44th Street in 1948, and for a time, movable gates were used to keep traffic off the runway while it was in use. Another expansion was completed in 1952, however all signs pointed to the need for a completely new facility.
In 1959, construction began on the current facility in Cascade Township, several miles east of the original location. The new airport opened November 23, 1963, and officially dedicated June 6, 1964. The first scheduled flight was a United Airlines Boeing 737-200 on April 28, 1968 which arrived from Chicago O'Hare. The aircraft, registration number N9022U, was named The Jet Mainliner City of Grand Rapids.
On January 27, 1977, Kent County Airport was renamed Kent County International Airport with the opening of a U.S. Customs Bureau Office in the main terminal building.
In 1997, the new 8,500-foot (2,600 m) runway 17/35 was added to allow the airport to continue operations during the $32 million reconstruction of runway 8R/26L, completed in 2001. A passenger terminal renovation project was completed in 2000, at a cost of approximately $50 million. Runways 8R, 26L and runway 35 are all ILS-equipped.
In 2004, the airport served more than 2 million passengers for the first time in a single year. In 2010, the airport broke the previous record set in 2004 with almost 2.2 million passengers served, as increase of over 23% from 2009.
Until October 31, 2011, the airport served as a focus city for Allegiant Air.
In January 2012, Southwest Airlines announced that it would continue to serve Grand Rapids through AirTran and eventually transfer the flights to Southwest.
In April 2012, Frontier Airlines stopped serving flights from Grand Rapids to Milwaukee.
Read more about this topic: Gerald R. Ford International Airport
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