Fairbanks International Airport is a state-owned public-use airport located three miles (5 km) southwest of the central business district of

Fairbanks Fairbanks is a home rule city and the borough seat of the Fairbanks North Star Borough in the U.S. state of Alaska. Fairbanks is the largest city in the Interior region of Alaska and the second largest in the state. The 2020 Census put the po ...

, a city in the

Fairbanks North Star Borough The Fairbanks North Star Borough is a borough located in the state of Alaska. As of the 2020 census, the population was 95,665, down from 97,581 in 2010. The borough seat is Fairbanks. The borough's land area is slightly smaller than that o ...

of the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

state of

Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S., ...

. Fairbanks is the smallest city in the United States with regularly scheduled non-stop international flights, as

Condor Condor is the common name for two species of New World vultures, each in a monotypic genus. The name derives from the Quechua ''kuntur''. They are the largest flying land birds in the Western Hemisphere. They are: * The Andean condor (''Vult ...

offers weekly flights to

Frankfurt Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , "Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its na ...

during the summer tourist season.

Air North Air North Charter and Training Ltd., operating as , is a Canadian airline based in Whitehorse, Yukon. It operates scheduled passenger and cargo flights throughout Yukon, as well as between Yukon and the Northwest Territories, British Columbia, ...

is another international airline with flights (to Canada).

History

Early years

The airport opened in 1951 and took over existing scheduled airline traffic to Fairbanks, which had previously used

Ladd Army Airfield Ladd Army Airfield is the military airfield located at Fort Wainwright in Fairbanks, Alaska. It was originally called Fairbanks Air Base, but was renamed Ladd Field on 1 December 1939, in honor of Major Arthur K. Ladd, a pilot in the U.S. A ...

Alaska Airlines Alaska Airlines is a major American airline headquartered in SeaTac, Washington, within the Seattle metropolitan area. It is the sixth largest airline in North America when measured by fleet size, scheduled passengers carried, and the numb ...

used Fairbanks as its main hub in the 1950s, with service to Seattle and Portland as well as intrastate service to Anchorage, Nome and other destinations. By 1967, however, the airline shifted its

hub to Anchorage; its Anchorage-Fairbanks service continues to this day. In the mid-1970s, following the development of the

Trans-Alaska Pipeline The Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS) is an oil transportation system spanning Alaska, including the trans-Alaska crude-oil pipeline, 11 pump stations, several hundred miles of feeder pipelines, and the Valdez Marine Terminal. TAPS is one o ...

and

Braniff International Braniff Airways, Inc., operated as Braniff International Airways from 1948 until 1965, and then Braniff International from 1965 until air operations ceased, List of defunct airlines of the United States (A–C), was an airline in the United Sta ...

offered "interchange service" between Fairbanks and Houston via Anchorage, Seattle and Dallas. In 1982, following airline deregulation,

and

American Airlines American Airlines is a major airlines of the United States, major US-based airline headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, within the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. It is the Largest airlines in the world, largest airline in the world when measured ...

began a similar interchange service using

Boeing 727 The Boeing 727 is an American narrow-body airliner that was developed and produced by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. After the heavy 707 quad-jet was introduced in 1958, Boeing addressed the demand for shorter flight lengths from smaller airpo ...

Pan American World Airways Pan American World Airways, originally founded as Pan American Airways and commonly known as Pan Am, was an American airline that was the principal and largest international air carrier and unofficial overseas flag carrier of the United States ...

had also served Fairbanks since 1932. The station was originally opened after the acquisition of Pacific International Airways and used for short-haul services to Juneau, Seattle, Ketchikan, Whitehorse and other destinations. Pan Am intended to use Fairbanks as a stop for service to Asia as early as 1931, but initial difficulty in negotiating landing rights with the Soviet Union, followed by the outbreak of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, delayed these plans until decades later. Pan Am service to Fairbanks continued through the opening of FAI until 1965, when the

Civil Aeronautics Board The Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) was an agency of the federal government of the United States, formed in 1938 and abolished in 1985, that regulated aviation services including scheduled passenger airline serviceStringer, David H."Non-Skeds: Th ...

terminated Pan Am's rights to serve Alaska.

eventually used Fairbanks as a stopover for transpacific service from New York and Seattle to Tokyo starting in September 1969. In 1974, Pan Am agreed to transfer its Fairbanks-Seattle service to

Western Airlines Western Airlines was a major airline based in California, operating in the Western United States including Alaska and Hawaii, and western Canada, as well as to New York City, Boston, Washington, D.C., and Miami and to Mexico City, London and N ...

, and requested that the CAB allow its New York-Tokyo service to be suspended from April 1975. Other carriers such as

Japan Airlines , also known as JAL (''Jaru'') or , is an international airline and Japan's flag carrier and largest airline as of 2021 and 2022, headquartered in Shinagawa, Tokyo. Its main hubs are Tokyo's Narita International Airport and Haneda Airport, as w ...

and

Korean Air Korean Air Co., Ltd. (), operating as Korean Air (Korean Air Lines before 1984), is the flag carrier of South Korea and its largest airline based on fleet size, international destinations and international flights. The present-day Korean Air ...

began to use Fairbanks as a technical stop for transpacific cargo flights in the late 1970s.

Development since the 2000s

On October 11, 2009, the airport constructed a new terminal and demolished the old terminal which was built in 1948. The new terminal is built around the modern TSA standards. In addition to architectural design and better security, the main terminal now has six jet-bridges (up from the former five). The 2,700m² of custom unitised curtain wall was designed and supplied by Overgaard Ltd. Hong Kong. The special design incorporated double low-''e'' triple glazing. The new building's footprint is smaller than the old building. For the 12-month period ending February 28, 2018, the airport had 119,898 aircraft operations, an average of 328 per day: 58%

general aviation General aviation (GA) is defined by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) as all civil aviation aircraft operations with the exception of commercial air transport or aerial work, which is defined as specialized aviation services ...

, 31%

air taxi An air taxi is a small commercial aircraft that makes short flights on demand. In 2001 air taxi operations were promoted in the United States by a NASA and aerospace industry study on the potential Small Aircraft Transportation System (SATS) an ...

, 9% scheduled commercial, and 2%

military A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct ...

. At that time there were 569 aircraft based at this airport: 91% single-

engine An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy. Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power gen ...

, 8% multi-engine, <1% jet and <1%

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes ...

Facilities

Terminal

The terminal building, situated on the southwest side of the airport, contains seven gates: two for commuter carriers and five for larger carriers.

Runways

Fairbanks International Airport covers an area of 3,470 acres (1,404 ha) at an elevation of 439 feet (134 m) above

mean sea level There are several kinds of mean in mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. ...

. It has four

runway According to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a runway is a "defined rectangular area on a land aerodrome prepared for the landing and takeoff of aircraft". Runways may be a man-made surface (often asphalt concrete, as ...

s: * Runway 2L/20R: 11,800 by 150 feet (3,597 x 46 m), surface: asphalt * Runway 2R/20L: 4,501 by 75 feet (1,981 x 30 m), surface: asphalt * Runway 2/20: 2,900 by 75 feet (884 x 23 m), surface: gravel/ski strip * Runway 2W/20W: 5,400 by 100 feet (1,646 x 30 m), surface: water/winter ski strip

Airlines and destinations

Passenger

Cargo

Statistics

Alaska Airlines E175 departing Fairbanks (Quintin Soloviev)

Accidents and incidents

* On December 30, 1951,

Transocean Air Lines Transocean Air Lines was established in 1946 as ONAT (Orvis Nelson Air Transport Company) based in Oakland Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port, Oakland is ...

Flight 501, a

Curtiss C-46 Commando The Curtiss C-46 Commando is a twin-engine transport aircraft derived from the Curtiss CW-20 pressurised high-altitude airliner design. Early press reports used the name "Condor III" but the Commando name was in use by early 1942 in company pub ...

, a cargo flight, crashed on approach to FAI due to not following radio procedures and spatial disorientation. All four occupants were killed. The wreckage was found on January 3, 1952. * On February 16, 1975, a Pacific Alaska Airlines

DC-6 The Douglas DC-6 is a piston-powered airliner and cargo aircraft built by the Douglas Aircraft Company from 1946 to 1958. Originally intended as a military transport near the end of World War II, it was reworked after the war to compete with ...

, a cargo flight, crashed attempting to return to Fairbanks Int'l Airport. Three engines lost power after takeoff from runway 10 and crashed 2 km short of runway 19 attempting to return to the airport possibly due to fuel contamination. All three occupants were killed. * On February 28, 1994, during takeoff for a ferry flight to

Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a East Coast of the United States, coastal metropolis and the County seat, county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade C ...

, a Lockheed L-1011-1 Tristar of

Rich International Airways Rich International Airways was primarily a United States charter and cargo airline founded by aviation pioneer Jean Rich, one of the few women in the U.S. to own and operate an airline. The air carrier was based in Miami, Florida. The airline cea ...

(registered N303EA) experienced a mechanical power loss on the number 3 and number 1 engines and an internal fire on the number 1 engine. The takeoff was aborted and during the taxi back, the fire on the number 1 engine was extinguished. None of the 3 occupants onboard were injured.

References

External links

Fairbanks International Airport
(official web site)
FAI Terminal Area Development Project

FAA Alaska airport map
(

GIF The Graphics Interchange Format (GIF; or , see pronunciation) is a bitmap image format that was developed by a team at the online services provider CompuServe led by American computer scientist Steve Wilhite and released on 15 June 1987. ...

)
FAA Alaska airport diagram
(

) * * ** {{Authority control 1951 establishments in Alaska Airports established in 1951 Airports in Fairbanks North Star Borough, Alaska Economy of Fairbanks, Alaska Tourist attractions in Fairbanks North Star Borough, Alaska WAAS reference stations