Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport (IATA: MSP, ICAO: KMSP, FAA LID: MSP), also, less commonly known as Wold-Chamberlain Field, is a joint civil-military public use international airport. Located in a portion of Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States, within 10 miles (16 km) of both downtown Minneapolis and downtown Saint Paul, it is the largest and busiest airport in the six-state Upper Midwest region of Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. The airport is mostly in the census-designated place of Fort Snelling in an unincorporated portion of Hennepin County. Small sections of the airport are within the city limits of Minneapolis and Richfield. However, per Minnesota state law, the land on which the airport sits is not part of any city or school district.
The airport was named Best Airport in North America among air terminals that serve 25 to 40 million passengers annually, the second largest category, in 2016 and 2017 by The Airports Council International. The airport generates an estimated $15.9 billion a year for the Twin Cities' economy and supports 87,000 workers.
In terms of passengers, Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport was the 17th busiest airport in the United States as of 2016 and the 49th busiest in the world in 2016. A joint civil-military airport, MSP is also home to the Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport Joint Air Reserve Station, supporting both Air Force Reserve Command and Air National Guard flight operations.
Of all the passengers that fly through MSP, 40% of them are connecting from other cities with a layover at MSP and 60% originate at the airport. Airlines out of MSP serve 163 nonstop markets from the airport, including 136 domestic and 27 international markets. Internationally, Delta flies to four trans-oceanic destinations year round: Amsterdam, London Heathrow, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, and Tokyo-Haneda, with an additional seasonal trans-oceanic flight to Reykjavík-Keflavík. Both Delta and Sun Country serve many cities throughout the Caribbean, Central America, Canada, and Mexico with seasonal or year-round service. Air France has seasonal service to Charles de Gaulle Airport and Condor Airlines flies to Frankfurt seasonally. Icelandair has year-round service to Keflavík. KLM resumed year-round service to Amsterdam in March 2017 and subsequently started MSP's first Boeing 787 service in October 2017. Compared to other large metropolitan areas in the United States, only Atlanta and Denver serve more non-stop markets per capita.
MSP is the second largest hub airport for Delta Air Lines and its Delta Connection partners. Compass Airlines and Endeavor Air have their official headquarters nearby. It also serves as the home airport for Minnesota-based Sun Country. Northwest had a hub at the airport until its 2010 merger with Delta Air Lines and the Delta Connection partner Mesaba Airlines was also headquartered nearby until December 2011 as it completed its merger with Pinnacle Airlines. Delta Air Lines accounts for more than 70% of the airport's passenger traffic. The airport is operated by the Metropolitan Airports Commission, which also handles the operation of six smaller airports in the region.
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History
The airport came into being when several local groups came together to take control of the former bankrupt Twin City Speedway race track, giving the airport its original name, Speedway Field. Soon after, in 1921, the airport was renamed "Wold-Chamberlain Field" for the World War I pilots Ernest Groves Wold and Cyrus Foss Chamberlain. Howard Hughes briefly stopped at Wold-Chamberlain Field on his round the world flight in 1938. In 1944 the site was renamed to "Minneapolis-St. Paul Metropolitan Airport/Wold-Chamberlain Field", with "International" replacing "Metropolitan" four years later. Today it is rare to see the Wold-Chamberlain portion of the name used anywhere.
MSP was the main base for Northwest Airlines starting in 1926 and became the main base of regional carrier North Central Airlines in 1952. North Central merged with Southern Airways to form Republic Airlines in 1979; Republic then merged with Northwest in 1986. The combined carrier came to control 79% of traffic at the airport, and merged into Delta Air Lines in 2010.
Ground was broken for the current Charles Lindbergh terminal building on October 26, 1958. The US $8.5 million, 600,000 square foot (56,000 m2) terminal with 24 gates on two concourses was designed by Lyle George Landstrom who worked for Cerny Associates and completed on January 13, 1962 and operations began on January 21, 1962. Piers A and D (formerly the Green and Gold Concourses, now Concourse C and Concourse G respectively) were built as an expansion of the terminal designed by Cerny Associates in 1970. This project also involved rebuilding the existing concourses into bi-level structures equipped with holding rooms and jet bridges. It handles airlines such as Delta, United and others. The Gold Concourse was expanded in 1986 and included the airport's first moving walkway.
In 1970, MSP served as the primary filming location for the film Airport, though the film presented the airport as a fictional Chicago-based Lincoln International. Ironically, MSP was selected in part for notorious winter climate, yet the filming period remained stubbornly fair-weathered, forcing film crews to employ copious amounts of fake snow. As filming had to take place during normal airport operations, several features of the airport itself, such as the color-based labeling of different concourses, were present in the movie. This labeling system was replaced beginning in 2000 with the more familiar system of lettered concourses.
Due in part to the impact of aircraft noise on south Minneapolis and surrounding suburbs, Northwest Airlines and others had proposed moving out of MSP and building a new airport on the fringes of the Twin Cities metro area to handle more large jets and more international traffic. Minneapolis and other neighboring cities were concerned that such a move would have a negative economic impact, so an arrangement was made where the Metropolitan Airports Commission would outfit many homes in the vicinity of the airport with sound insulation and air conditioning so that indoor noise could be reduced. A citizen group named ROAR (Residents Opposed to Airport Racket) was created in 1998 and helped push the MAC to make these concessions. Later, in 2004, the MAC voted to reduce funding for the soundproofing projects, stating in part that the economic climate had turned in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks. Minneapolis Mayor R. T. Rybak, who had been a founding member of ROAR, promised that the city would challenge the funding changes.
The Hubert H. Humphrey Terminal was built in 2001. It is used mostly for charter and low cost airlines, including Minnesota based Sun Country and Southwest, but is also used for Condor and Icelandair. The Terminal has since been expanded and has a total of 14 gates.
Concourses A and B opened on June 1, 2002 as part of a $250 million terminal expansion designed by Minneapolis-based Architectural Alliance. The final component of the project included a $17.5 million extension of Concourse C consisting of six additional gates, which opened on October 31, 2002.
Icelandair started service to Minneapolis-St. Paul from Reykjavik in 1998. Northwest operated flights from Minneapolis-St. Paul to Hong Kong and Osaka in 1998 using 747-400 aircraft, but were dropped in the same year. Northwest also operated Minneapolis-St. Paul to Oslo and Frankfurt service using DC-10 aircraft, but they too were dropped. From the early 1990s and to 2000s (decade), KLM operated 747 and MD-11 service from Amsterdam to Minneapolis-St. Paul. In part because of the Delta/KLM joint venture, KLM has not served Minneapolis-St. Paul with its own aircraft since 2004, but reintroduced the service in March 2017. Beginning in the summer of 2013 Air France commenced non-stop seasonal flights from Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport to Minneapolis-St. Paul using Airbus A340-300 aircraft. Condor Airlines also began non-stop seasonal service to Minneapolis-St. Paul from Frankfurt in the summer of 2014 using 767-300's.
By May 2012, Great Lakes Airlines was adding services to small communities that had been ended by the legacy carriers earlier in the airport's history. Hub status was removed February 1, 2014 due to the lack of qualified pilots.
The TSA typically screens about 34,000 people at MSP daily and screens about 18,000 checked bags. The airports current record for passengers and bags was set on February 5, 2018 which was the day after Super Bowl LII. That record is 60,883 passengers screened at TSA checkpoints and 34,368 checked bags screened. For the event, the TSA brought in more than 100 additional agents and 20 canines to MSP for the expected number of passengers.
Facilities
Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport has two terminals with a total of 131 gates, both of which were named for famous Minnesotans: the Lindbergh Terminal 1 (named after the aviator Charles Lindbergh) and the smaller Humphrey Terminal 2 (named for former US Vice President Hubert Humphrey).
Lindbergh Terminal 1 officially has seven concourses, lettered A-G, although they are all interconnected.
The Humphrey Terminal 2 consists entirely of Concourse H. The old Humphrey Terminal 2, built in 1986, was rebuilt in 2001 to expand capacity and give passengers a more seamless experience.
Like many other airports, MSP interconnects with several other forms of transportation. Several large parking ramps are available for cars. Most other connections are made at the Hub Building and adjacent Transit Center, which has city and shuttle bus, taxi, light-rail and rental car service. Two trams (people movers) are at the airport. One carries passengers from the main section of Lindbergh Terminal 1 to the Hub Building and another runs along Concourse C in that terminal.
The airport is near Fort Snelling, the site of one of the earliest United States government settlements in the area. Both the Mississippi and Minnesota rivers flow nearby. Minnesota State Highway 5 provides the closest entrance to the Lindbergh Terminal 1, just a short distance from Interstate 494. The Humphrey Terminal 2 is accessed via the 34th Avenue exit from I-494, which runs past Fort Snelling National Cemetery. Delta Air Lines has hangars arranged along I-494 and 34th Avenue, so it's possible to see airliners undergoing maintenance while driving past.
The METRO light rail Blue Line has stops at both the Hub Building Terminal 1 (Lindbergh Station) and Terminal 2 Humphrey Terminal (Humphrey Station). It connects the airport with downtown Minneapolis as well as with the Mall of America in nearby Bloomington and operates as a shuttle service between the two airport terminals. Travelers can use the rail line to go between the two sites at all times; it is the only part of the line that operates continuously through the night (the rest shuts down for about four hours early in the morning). Two parallel tunnels for the line run roughly 70 feet (20 meters) below the airport and at 1.7 miles (2.7 km) in length are the longest tunnels on the route. The Lindbergh Terminal 1 station is the only one underground on the line, as the rails return to the surface near Humphrey Terminal 2. Due to current concerns about terrorism, a great deal of effort went into ensuring that the tunnels are highly blast-resistant. The underground portion was the costliest section of the entire rail project.
Runways
Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport covers 2,930 acres (1,186 ha) and has four runways, all with high intensity lights.
Runway 17/35 opened in October 2005. Prior to that time, a number of buildings (including several hangars and the City of Richfield's Rich Acres Golf Course) were demolished to make way for the runway protection zone of the new runway. Aircraft approaching Runway 35 fly slightly east of the Mall of America, overfly Interstate 494 and land seconds later. Due to noise concerns from south Minneapolis, between August 13, 2007 and October 18, 2007, Runway 17/35 was used regularly during construction on Runway 12R/30L.
Airport lounges
Armed Forces Service Center is an all free lounge for traveling military which includes Active Duty, Reserve and National Guard personnel and their dependents, as well as Department of Defense and PHS employees (on orders) and other members of the uniformed services on active duty. The center is located in Terminal 1 on the mezzanine level above the main ticket area by checkpoint 1.
Delta Air Lines offers two Sky Clubs. Both are located in Terminal 1. One is located near the entrance to the F and G concourses. The second is located on the C concourse, near Gate C12.
Escape Lounge is a club that is open to all passengers for a fee. It is located in Terminal 1 on the mezzanine level of the Airport Mall.
PGA MSP Lounge is a members only club. It is located in Terminal 1 at the north end of the Airport Mall's mezzanine level at the intersection of concourses C, D & E.
United Airlines has a United Club in Terminal 1 between gates E6 and E8.
Hotel (on-site)
InterContinental Hotels has signed on to be the first full service on-site hotel at the airport with 300 rooms on 12 floors. It will open during the winter of 2017-2018. The new hotel will be skyway connected to the airport with its own security checkpoint. The hotel will also have an "observation bar" on the top floor. It will have floor to ceiling windows with views of both downtowns of Minneapolis and St. Paul. It will also have sweeping views of the Minnesota River, Mississippi River and the entire airport.
Other buildings
Delta Air Lines Building C is located on the property of Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and in Fort Snelling. Delta uses it for northern and regional operations. The building is located along 34th Avenue, which is the main access point to the airport terminals from Interstate 494, and across from the Fort Snelling National Cemetery. Building C is in a public access area of the airport, so visitors are not required to undergo security checks to access it. In 2009, as Northwest Airlines and Delta Air Lines merged, Delta removed all employees from Building A, the previous headquarters of Northwest in Eagan and all employees who remained in Minneapolis were moved to Building C, which was renovated and Building J. Facilities within the building include the Compass Airlines corporate headquarters, which moved there on December 16, 2009 and Delta SkyBonus offices. Endeavor Air is also headquartered in Building C. In 2013 Delta announced that the former Pinnacle Airlines, which became Endeavor, would move its headquarters from Memphis to MSP Airport and that it would occupy five stories.
Prior to its disestablishment, Republic Airlines (1979-1986) had its headquarters in Building C. The Regional Elite Airline Services headquarters were in Building C.
Airlines and destinations
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Top domestic destinations
Top international destinations
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Military facilities
The Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport Joint Air Reserve Station at MSP is home to the 934th Airlift Wing (934 AW), an Air Force Reserve Command (AFRC) unit and the 133d Airlift Wing (133 AW) of the Minnesota Air National Guard. Both units fly the C-130 Hercules and are operationally-gained by the Air Mobility Command (AMC). The 934th consists of over 1,300 military personnel, of which approximately 250 are full-time Active Guard and Reserve (AGR) and Air Reserve Technician (ART) personnel. The 133rd is similarly manned, making for a total military presence of over 2,600 full-time and part-time personnel.
The 934 AW serves as the "host" wing for the installation, which also includes lodging/billeting, officers club, Base Exchange (BX) and other morale, welfare and recreation (MWR) facilities for active, reserve/national guard and retired military personnel and their families.
MSP 2035 long-term comprehensive plan
In 2004, Northwest Airlines, since merged into Delta Air Lines, proposed expanding the Lindbergh Terminal 1 to accommodate growing flight operations in a plan known as the MSP 2020 Vision. The proposed expansion included moving all airlines other than Northwest Airlines and its SkyTeam alliance partners to the Humphrey Terminal 2. This caused increased concern about Northwest Airlines' control of the Minneapolis/St. Paul commercial air service market with some claiming that Northwest was using its market position to inflate airfares. While AirTran Airways voiced opposition to the plan, American Airlines and United Airlines remained neutral on the move since both had exclusive terminals at their own main hubs. Despite the merger between Northwest and Delta Air Lines, there are still plans in place to carry out these expansions. In August 2015, the Metropolitan Airports Commission (MAC) approved a plan that looks out to the year 2035. At the meeting the airlines were split into three groups: All SkyTeam airlines, Southwest Airlines and all other passenger airlines.
The MAC looked at the following requirements for the Lindbergh Terminal and all SkyTeam partners:
- 119 total gates are required in 2030
- 13 gates must accommodate wide-body aircraft
- Delta Air Lines and other SkyTeam airlines will have exclusive rights to the entire Lindbergh Terminal 1
- 63 gates must accommodate medium and large regional aircraft
- 20 gates must have access to international arrivals facilities
The MAC also looked into the following requirements for all Non-SkyTeam partners at the Humphrey Terminal 2:
- 36 total gates are required in 2030
- 2 gates must accommodate wide-body aircraft
- 30 gates must accommodate narrow-body jet aircraft
- 5 gates must have access to international arrivals facilities
The 36 gates required at the Humphrey Terminal in 2030 will serve predominantly narrow-body aircraft operated by airlines with hubs elsewhere and Sun Country Airlines, which operates a fleet of exclusively Boeing 737's. Most air service to MSP on these airlines are anticipated to be operated by common narrow-body aircraft such as the Boeing 737 or Airbus A320.
Incremental airlines relocate
This plan is what has been chosen to maximize the capacity at MSP through 2035. It includes three phases through 2020, 2030 and 2035. The final product moves some, but not all non-Delta airlines, from Terminal 1 to Terminal 2, evens out capacity over the two terminals and will finish with as many as 15 new gates being constructed over both terminals and new parking garages.
By 2020 (38 million annual passengers)
- Improve Terminal 1-Lindbergh terminal/land-side ~$728 million
- Milestone subtotal ~$728 million
By 2030 (48 million annual passengers)
- Add gates/parking @ Terminal 2-Humphrey ~$374 million
- Improve Terminal 1-Lindbergh terminal ~$292 million
- Improve area roadways ~$84 million
- Milestone subtotal ~$750 million
By 2035 (54 million annual passengers)
- Add gates/parking @ Terminal 1-Lindbergh ~$847 million
- Add gates/parking @ Terminal 2-Humphrey ~215 million
- Milestone subtotal ~$1.06 billion
Total 2035 LTCP Recommended Development Cost ~$2.54 billion
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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