Dallas Fort Worth International Airport opened for commercial service in January 1974, the product of a federally brokered truce between Dallas and Fort Worth, which had feuded for decades over rival airports. The cities jointly built a colossal facility on 17,000-plus acres of prairie between them, a property larger than the island of Manhattan, laid out around a central spine highway with semicircular terminals designed for the age of the automobile.
American Airlines moved its headquarters to the area in 1979 and built DFW into the world's largest single-airline hub operation after deregulation, while Braniff's collapse in 1982 cleared the field. The airport grew to seven runways, and in 1996 became one of the few airports anywhere with four paved runways longer than 4,000 meters.
The Skylink automated train, opened in 2005, tied the five terminals together airside, and the international Terminal D opened the same year. DFW today is American's mega-hub with more than 900 daily departures. In recent years it has ranked as the second- or third-busiest airport in the world by passengers. An ambitious plan for a sixth terminal, Terminal F, moves ahead toward the 2030s.