Kissimmee Gateway Airport , formerly known as Kissimmee Municipal Airport, is a public

airport An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial air transport. Airports usually consists of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surfa ...

Kissimmee Kissimmee ( ) is the largest city and county seat of Osceola County, Florida, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 79,226. It is a Principal City of the Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford, Florida, Metropolitan Statistical Area, wh ...

, a city in Osceola County,

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and ...

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 Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

. The airport is located 16 nautical miles (30 km) southwest of the

central business district A central business district (CBD) is the commercial and business centre of a city. It contains commercial space and offices, and in larger cities will often be described as a financial district. Geographically, it often coincides with the "city ...

Orlando Orlando () is a city in the U.S. state of Florida and is the county seat of Orange County. In Central Florida, it is the center of the Orlando metropolitan area, which had a population of 2,509,831, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures re ...

. It is owned and operated by the City of Kissimmee. The airport does not offer scheduled passenger service.

DayJet DayJet was an American commercial aviation operation that provided on-demand jet travel using Eclipse 500 very light jets. Founded by Ed Iacobucci, the former leader of the IBM-Microsoft Joint OS/2 development team IBM executive and the foun ...

formerly provided "on-demand" service to 12 cities, but suspended all operations in September 2008.

Facilities and aircraft

Kissimmee Gateway Airport covers an area of which contains two

asphalt Asphalt, also known as bitumen (, ), is a sticky, black, highly viscous liquid or semi-solid form of petroleum. It may be found in natural deposits or may be a refined product, and is classed as a pitch. Before the 20th century, the term ...

paved

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 ...

s: 6/24 measuring 5,001 x 150 ft (1,524 x 46 m) and 15/33 measuring 6,001 x 100 ft (1,829 x 30 m). Today it hosts a variety of general aviation aircraft operations, including a major facility for the restoration of classic military aircraft from the World War II era to flying condition. The airport has an operational control tower and a Category I

instrument landing system In aviation, the instrument landing system (ILS) is a precision radio navigation system that provides short-range guidance to aircraft to allow them to approach a runway at night or in bad weather. In its original form, it allows an aircraft to ...

(ILS) on its main runway. It is considered a general aviation reliever airport to

Orlando International Airport Orlando International Airport is a major public airport located 6 miles (10 km) southeast of Downtown Orlando, Florida. In 2021, it handled 19,618,838 passengers, making it the busiest airport in the state and seventh busiest airport i ...

. For the 12-month period ending December 31, 2001, the airport had 150,388 aircraft operations, an average of 412 per day: 98%

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 ...

, 2%

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) ...

, <1% military and <1% scheduled commercial. There are 206 aircraft based at this airport: 71% single-engine, 22% multi-engine, 4% jet and 3%

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 attribu ...

History

: ''For the World War II use of the airport, see:

Kissimmee Army Airfield Kissimmee Army Airfield, was a United States Army Air Forces airfield during World War II, located west of Kissimmee, Florida. History The airport opened in April 1940 as the Kissimmee Municipal Airport. By 1941, it was taken over by the Un ...

'' The airport opened in April 1940 by the

United States Army Air Forces The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

. Known as Kissimmee Army Airfield, it was used as part of the Air University

Army Air Forces School of Applied Tactics An army (from Old French ''armee'', itself derived from the Latin verb ''armāre'', meaning "to arm", and related to the Latin noun ''arma'', meaning "arms" or "weapons"), ground force or land force is a fighting force that fights primarily on ...

(AAFSAT) tactical combat simulation school in Central and Northern

. Training was moved to southern California in January 1944, and the military use of the field was phased down. The airfield was closed on 7 July 1945 and returned to civilian use by the end of the year.

References

External links

* brochure fro
CFASPP
* * {{Metro Orlando Airports in Florida Transportation buildings and structures in Osceola County, Florida Buildings and structures in Kissimmee, Florida 1940 establishments in Florida Airports established in 1940