It’s true that the two Washington area airports dominate air travel in the state. Dulles, which straddles Fairfax and Loudoun Counties, served almost 23 million passengers in 2004. Ronald Reagan National in Arlington, which sits on only 860 acres, served 15.9 million travelers. But, there are actually seven other commercial airports in the Commonwealth and 59 general aviation airports, reports Virginia’s Department of Aviation in its Virginia Airport System Economic Impact Study – 2004 Final Technical Report. (Virginia Department of Aviation.) 

The development of Virginia’s airports mirrors the history of airfields nationwide. Often a grassy area at the edge of a town became a landing strip, which was later paved. Sheds on the property were redesigned as hangars and terminals. The requirements for an airfield are that it is as level as possible, the ground is firm and drains well, and that approaches to runways are free of obstacles such as trees, hills and buildings. The site should also be as free as possible from air pollution or weather that affects visibility.

The first airports in the nation were called landing fields and often located in open, grass-covered areas that allowed pilots to take off into the wind, which helped lift a plane. While it is impossible to document a “first airport,” there are recorded airports as early as 1909 in the U.S. In the Blacksburg area, old-timers claim a flying field was set up prior to 1913 in a farmer’s pasture a mile south of the city. Sixteen years later engineers from the Virginia Highway Department – the experts in paving – began to develop a new site near the campus of Virginia Tech. As planes got heavier in the 1930s, they required paved surfaces and longer runways. The Virginia Tech Airport, a general aviation airfield now called Virginia Tech Montgomery Executive Airport, opened in 1931.

The 1930s and 1940s were the heyday for airport development. In the late 1920s, after Lindbergh’s non-stop New York to Paris flight, local municipalities scurried to create airports as a kind of “boosterism,” writes Peter Bakewell in America’s Airports: Airfield Development, 1918 – 1947. Aviation was the wave of the future, even though it hadn’t yet turned a profit.

By the mid-1930s, with the unveiling new aircraft such as the Douglas DC-3, the possibility of making a profit on passenger service seemed attainable. Depression- era initiatives, such as the Works Progress Administration, helped to maintain and upgrade airports. But the greatest influx of federal funds came during World War II when a number of airports in the South and on the two coasts were taken over by the military; after the war, many returned to civilian use.

The Newport News/Williamsburg International Airport is one facility that had such origins in World War II. It was once the airport facility for the U.S. Army’s Camp Patrick Henry; its three-letter airport code is still PHF for Patrick Henry Field. Almost 1.5 million soldiers passed through the camp on their way to the Newport News waterfront to board troop ships crossing the Atlantic. After the war, commercial flights began with Piedmont (USAir’s predecessor) and Capitol Airlines in 1949. By 2004, its four commercial airlines handled more than 900,000 passengers.

Speaking of airport identifier codes, the tags originally evolved from two-letter codes that the National Weather Service used to record data from various cities. But, as airline service exploded in the 1930s, there was a need to identify cities that did not have weather codes. An anonymous bureaucrat devised the three-letter system, which allows for 17,576 combinations. Since even today we have only 16,000 airports in the U.S., we haven’t yet run out of monikers. When the new airport identifier tags were adopted, cities who already used the two-letter weather codes just added an X. Thus the Los Angeles tag became LAX. "Airport ABCs: An Explanation of Airport Identifier Codes"

Next to Dulles and Ronald Reagan National, the Norfolk International Airport is the busiest in the state. Last year, 3.7 million passengers passed through its doors. They could fly non-stop as far north as Boston, as far south as Ft. Lauderdale, and as far west as Las Vegas. Richmond was second with 2.5 million fliers. From Richmond, travelers can fly non-stop to such destinations as Boston, Miami and Dallas/Ft. Worth. While none of Virginia’s airports make the top 30 among the world’s busiest airports – Atlanta’s is number one with 83 million passengers in 2004 -- the state’s Department of Aviation assures us that our residents are not deprived. Ninety-seven percent of them are within driving distance of either a commercial or general aviation airport.

Here’s a puzzler for you. Five of the Commonwealth’s commercial airports are mentioned above. Can you name the other four? (Click here for the answer.)

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