Daniel K. Inouye International Airport , also known as Honolulu International Airport, is the main and largest airport in Hawaii. The airport is named after Honolulu native and Medal of Honor recipient Daniel Inouye, who represented Hawaii in the United States Senate from 1963 until his death in 2012. The airport is in the Honolulu census-designated place 3 miles (5 km) northwest of Honolulu's central business district. The airport covers 4,220 acres (1,708 ha), more than 1% of Oahu's land.
Daniel K. Inouye Airport offers nonstop flights to many places in North America, Asia, and Oceania. The airport serves as the main hub of Hawaiian Airlines and is also a base for Aloha Air Cargo. The airport is included in the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems for 2017–2021, in which it is categorized as a large-hub primary commercial service facility.
History
The airport opened in March 1927 as John Rodgers Airport, after World War I naval officer John Rodgers. It was funded by the territorial legislature and the Chamber of Commerce, and was the first full airport in Hawaii; aircraft had previously been limited to small landing strips, fields, and seaplane docks. From 1939 to 1943, the adjacent Keehi Lagoon was dredged for use by seaplanes, and the dredged soil was moved to HNL to provide more space for conventional planes.
The U.S. military grounded all civil aircraft and took over all civil airports after the attack on Pearl Harbor, and Rodgers Field was designated Naval Air Station Honolulu. The Navy built a control tower and terminal building, and some commercial traffic was allowed during daylight hours. Rodgers Field was returned to the Territory of Hawaii in 1946. At the time, at , it was one of the largest airports in the United States, with four paved land runways and three seaplane runways.
John Rodgers Airport was renamed Honolulu Airport in 1947; "International" being added to the name in 1951. Being near the center of the Pacific Ocean it was a stop for many transpacific flights. By 1950, it was the third-busiest airport in the United States in terms of aircraft operations, and its runway was the world's longest in 1953. In summer 1959, Qantas began the first jet service to Honolulu on its flights between Australia and California. Qantas introduced these jet flights with Boeing 707 aircraft operating a routing of Sydney – Fiji – Honolulu – San Francisco. Aeronautical engineer and airline consultant Frank Der Yuen advised in the design of the original building and founded its aerospace museum.
The original terminal building on the southeast side of runways 4 was replaced by the John Rodgers Terminal, which was dedicated on August 22, 1962, and opened on October 14, 1962. From 1970 through 1978, the architect Vladimir Ossipoff designed a terminal modernization project that remodeled this terminal and created several additions, which included the Diamond Head Concourse in 1970, the Ewa Concourse in 1972, and the Central Concourse in 1980.