Indianapolis International Airport

Indianapolis Municipal Airport opened in 1931 on farmland southwest of the city. In 1944 it was renamed for Colonel Harvey Weir Cook, an Indiana native and a First World War flying ace. Cook died in a crash in the Pacific while training pilots. Through the postwar years the airport grew into a solid, mid sized Midwestern airport, with a terminal built in 1957 that was extended repeatedly as jets arrived.

The airport's biggest moment came in the 1980s, when United Airlines chose Indianapolis for a large national aircraft maintenance center. Then, in 1988, Federal Express opened a hub here, a base where it sorts and connects cargo flights overnight. The United facility closed later, but FedEx stayed and grew steadily into the airport's defining tenant, running its second largest hub after Memphis.

That turned a modest passenger airport into one of the largest cargo airports in the United States. A brand new midfield terminal, named for Weir Cook, opened in November 2008 on the opposite side of the airfield from the old building. Indianapolis has since won many awards for passenger experience. It remains an unusual airport where the nighttime freight side actually carries more weight than the daytime airline schedule.

Indianapolis has three runways, a parallel pair, 05L/23R and 05R/23L, plus a third, 14/32. Its midfield terminal, opened in 2008, has two concourses built around a central atrium. Passenger traffic here is mostly origin and destination, meaning people flying to or from Indianapolis rather than connecting through it. Delta, Southwest, American, United, Allegiant, and Frontier all serve it, but none treats Indianapolis as a hub.

The airport's real weight sits on the cargo side. FedEx runs its second largest hub, with a huge sorting facility and a nightly wave of freighter planes. That keeps Indianapolis among the busiest cargo airports in the country. Each May, the Indianapolis 500 race brings a huge seasonal spike in private business jets.