Coordinates: 25°47′36″N 080°17′26″W / 25.79333°N 80.29056°W / 25.79333; -80.29056
Miami International Airport (IATA: MIA , ICAO: KMIA , FAA LID: MIA ), also known as Wilcox Field, is the primary airport serving the Miami metropolitan area. The airport is located eight miles (13 km) northwest of the central business district of Miami, in unincorporated Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. It is located between the cities of Miami, Hialeah, Doral, and Miami Springs, the village of Virginia Gardens, and the unincorporated community of Fountainbleau.
The airport is a hub for passenger airlines American Airlines, Executive Airlines under the American Eagle name, Gulfstream International Airlines under the Continental Connection name; cargo airlines Arrow Air, UPS Airlines and FedEx Express; and charter airline Miami Air. Miami International Airport handles flights to cities throughout the Americas and Europe, as well as cargo flights to Asia, and is South Florida's main airport for long-haul international flights.
Miami is a major gateway between the United States and Latin America, and, along with Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson Airport, is one of the largest aerial gateways into the Southern United States, owing to its proximity to tourist attractions, local economic growth, large local Latin American and European populations, and strategic location to handle connecting traffic between North America, Latin America, and Europe. In the past, it has been a hub for Braniff International Airways, Eastern Air Lines, Air Florida, the original National Airlines, the original Pan Am, United Airlines, and Iberia. Through the first eight months of 2009, the airport ranked second as an international gateway to the United States, behind New York-JFK in New York City and ahead of LAX in Los Angeles. Miami is also the proposed hub of two new start-up airlines, one of which hopes to use the Eastern Airlines name.
In 2008, 34,063,531 passengers traveled through the airport, making the airport the 29th busiest airport in the world by passenger traffic. The airport also handled more international cargo than any other airport in the United States,
Fire protection at the airport is provided by Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Department Station 12.
History
The airport was opened to flights in 1928 as Pan American Field , the operating base of Pan American Airways Corporation, on the north side of the modern airport property. After Pan Am acquired the New York, Rio, and Buenos Aires Line, it shifted most of its operations to the Dinner Key seaplane base, leaving Pan Am Field largely unused until Eastern Air Lines began flying there in 1934, followed by National Airlines in 1937.
In 1945, the City of Miami established a Port Authority and raised bond revenue to purchase the airport, which had meanwhile been renamed 36th Street Airport , from Pan Am. It was merged with an adjoining Army airfield in 1949 and expanded further in 1951. The old terminal on 36th Street was closed in 1959 when the modern passenger terminal (since greatly expanded) opened for service.
Air Force Reserve troop carrier and rescue squadrons also operated from Miami International from 1949 through 1959, when the last such unit relocated to nearby Homestead Air Force Base, now Homestead Air Reserve Base.
Pan Am and Eastern remained Miami International Airport's main tenants until 1991, when both carriers went bankrupt. Their hubs at MIA were taken over by United Airlines and American Airlines, respectively. United slowly trimmed down its Miami operation through the 1990s, and eventually shut down its crew base and other operations facilities in Miami. At the same time, American expanded its presence at the airport, winning new routes to Latin America and transferring employees and equipment from its failed domestic hubs at Nashville and Raleigh-Durham. Today, Miami is American's largest air freight hub, and forms the main connecting point in the airline's north-south oriented international route network.
For many years, the airport was a common connecting point for passengers traveling from Europe to Latin America. However, stricter visa requirements for aliens in transit (a result, in part, of the September 11, 2001 attacks) have lessened MIA's role as an intercontinental connecting hub. In 2004, Iberia Airlines ended its hub operation in Miami, opting instead to run more direct flights from Spain to Central America. Air France continues to run flights to Port-au-Prince using Airbus A320 aircraft.
AeroSur, American Airlines, American Eagle, Gulfstream International Airlines, Sky King Airlines, TACA International Airlines, and Vision Airlines all operate regular flights between MIA and several airports in Cuba, the one of the few direct airlink between the two nations. However, these flights must be booked through agents with special authorization from the Office of Foreign Assets Control, and are only generally available to government officials, journalists, researchers, professionals attending conferences, or expatriates visiting Cuban family.
Facilities and aircraft
Miami International Airport covers an area of 3,300 acres (1,335 ha) which contains four runways:
- Runway 8L/26R: 8,600 x 150 ft (2,621 x 46 m), Surface: Asphalt
- Runway 8R/26L: 10,506 x 200 ft (3,202 x 61 m), Surface: Asphalt
- Runway 9/27: 13,000 x 150 ft (3,962 x 46 m), Surface: Asphalt
- Runway 12/30: 9,354 x 150 ft (2,851 x 46 m), Surface: Asphalt
For the 12-month period ending December 31, 2007, the airport had 385,062 aircraft operations, an average of 1,054 per day: 77% scheduled commercial, 17% air taxi, 6% general aviation and <1% military. There are 28 aircraft based at this airport: 46% multi-engine and 54% jet.
Terminal
The main terminal at MIA dates back to 1959, with several new additions. Semicircular in shape, the terminal has eight pier-shaped concourses, lettered counter-clockwise from A to J (B was demolished in 2005; Letter I was skipped to avoid confusion with the number 1). From the terminal's opening until the mid-1970s, the concourses were originally numbered clockwise from 1 to 6.
Level 1 of the terminal contains baggage carousels and ground transportation access. Level 2 contains ticketing/check-in, shopping and dining, and access to the concourses. The airport currently has two immigration and customs facilities, located in Concourse E, Level 1 and in Concourse J, Level 3. All gates in Concourses A, D, E, and J, most gates in Concourse F, and some gates in Concourse H, can route passengers to either the main concourse on Level 2 (for domestic arrivals), or to the immigration and customs halls on Level 3 (for international arrivals). However, all gates in Concourse G, most gates in Concourse H, and some gates in Concourse F are designed only for domestic arrivals. MIA is unique among American airports in that all of its facilities are common-use, meaning that they are assigned by the airport and no one airline holds ownership or leases on any terminal space or gates, thus giving the airport much more flexibility in terminal and gate assignments and allowing it to make full use of existing facilities. The entire airport became common-use by the 1990s.
The airport is served by three parking facilities: a two-level short-term parking lot located directly in front of Concourse E, and two seven-story parking garages (Dolphin and Flamingo) located within the terminal's curvature and connected to the terminal via overhead walkways on Level 3. In the late 1990s, the Dolphin Garage was expanded to better serve the then-new Concourse A; it is expected that the Flamingo Garage will be similarly expanded in the near future to serve the new Concourse J. The two parking garages are connected at their westernmost end; at the top of this connection are the airport's SIDA and ID Section offices. The single terminal facility is divided into three sections known as the North Terminal, Central Terminal, and South Terminal.
The North Terminal is presently undergoing a dramatic transformation, the largest ever undertaken on any operating airport. Concourses A, C, and D, which currently serve American Airlines and its regional affiliates, are being merged into a single linear concourse, to be designated Concourse D. Portions of the new North Terminal have already been built as extensions of Concourses A and D; to make space for the remaining portions, Concourse B was demolished in 2005, and Concourse C has been closed and is pending demolition. Although this construction was originally
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