Fort Wayne International Airport lies eight miles southwest of Fort Wayne, in Allen County, Indiana, United States. It is owned by the Fort Wayne-Allen County Airport Authority.
The National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems for 2011–2015 categorized it as a primary commercial service airport since it has over 10,000 passenger boardings (enplanements) per year. Federal Aviation Administration records say the airport had 359,800 enplanements in calendar year 2022, 7.15% more than 2021. Based on passenger enplanements, Fort Wayne International ranked #147 out of the 539 airports in the United States that received scheduled passenger airline service in 2022. As such, the airport is classified by the FAA as a "nonhub", or an airport that has between 10,000 and 400,000 enplanements per year.
The airport has one terminal, the Lieutenant Paul Baer Terminal. Passenger flights reach seven airline hubs of Atlanta, Chicago, Charlotte, Dallas/Fort Worth, Detroit, and Minneapolis-Saint Paul, along with flights to Orlando, Punta Gorda (serving Fort Myers and Sarasota), Tampa, Phoenix, and seasonal service to Myrtle Beach, Sarasota, and Las Vegas. Together, flights from the airport to these fourteen cities serve over 790,000 combined arriving and departing passengers per year.Fort Wayne-Allen County Airport Authority – Fast Facts . Retrieved on February 20, 2013.
The airport has a air cargo center on the southwest side. The center was occupied by Kitty Hawk Aircargo, which had a hub at Fort Wayne until October 30, 2007, shortly after the carrier filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The former Kitty Hawk hub is now used by several aviation and non-aviation companies including Logistics Insight, FedEx Express, and Spinach Ball.. The Journal Gazette. October 23, 2012. Retrieved on December 7, 2012.
History Baer Army Air Base & Baer Field
The airport was built at a cost of $10 million as a United States Army Air Corps base just before World War II. A coalition of city business interests arranged to purchase a series of contiguous land parcels outside of Fort Wayne, demolish the existing structures, and present a unified parcel to the War Department in a short enough period to meet a competitive deadline for the Development of Landing Areas for National Defense (DLAND) initiative while preserving civilian access to the existing Paul Baer Municipal Airport (now Smith Field) on the north side of the city. War Department policy at the time required that bases and airfields be named for deceased military aviators, so other suggestions were rejected, and the department chose to name the new facility for Paul Frank Baer, a Fort Wayne native and World War I flying ace and early official for the Aeronautics Branch of the United States Department of Commerce (now the Federal Aviation Administration). The original airport had been named for Baer while he was still living, but he had since died in a seaplane accident in Shanghai while carrying mail and passengers for the China National Aviation Corporation. The War Department's name choice necessitated a change of name for the municipal airport to avoid confusion, and city leaders elected to rename it for Art Smith, a pioneering airmail pilot, also a native of Fort Wayne, who also died in the course of his airmail duties.
Operations began in April 1941 under the name Baer Army Air Base, when Maj. Wilson T. Douglas of the Quartermaster Corps arrived as the base quartermaster. The weather station was activated in August of that year, and the 13th Service Squadron was transferred from Chanute Field. The band arrived in October, and in November the 103 Communications Squadron arrived and the base was activated as Baer Field. The ordnance company departed in December, eventually reaching Port Moresby in New Guinea in February of the following year. The 307th Pursuit Squadron, which was activated in January 1942, flying Bell P-39 Airacobra and Curtis P-40 Warhawk training aircraft. Once training was completed, the unit was sent to Atcham in England. On December 7, 1941, a month after Baer Field was activated, the Japanese Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service struck Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, causing the United States to formally declare war the following day.
Later in 1942, the Army Air Corps became the United States Army Air Forces. Over 100,000 military personnel served out of Baer Field and its more than one hundred structures during the war. A large number of ground and air squadrons trained at the facility before deployment to the European and Asiatic-Pacific Theaters of operations.
In December 1945, the facility was put on Temporary Inactive status, and in 1946 its name reverted to Baer Army Air Base. By January 1947, the base had shrunk to a small Air Communications Service detachment under Maj. Phillip Cartwright, consisting of the major and two other officers and no enlisted men, was concerned primarily with the storage and transfer of base records. The base was determined to be surplus to the needs of the War Department, except for areas reserved for reserve and Air National Guard activity. Thereafter, the base was used sporadically for the Army Air Forces Reserve and Air Force Reserve training until 1951, the base was again in use for the 163rd Fighter Interceptor Squadron, joined later that year by the 122nd Fighter Wing from Stout Army Air Field. Since the Korean War, the base has mostly hosted Indiana Air National Guard units but has occasionally hosted active-duty units like the 434th Air Refueling Wing (previously the 434th Tactical Airlift Wing) on a temporary basis.
The oldest original Baer Army Air Field hangar, Hangar No. 40, was in use from World War II until 2012. Hangar No. 40's final tenant was FedEx Express, who used it until the hangar was damaged in a weather-related incident. After the damage to Hangar No. 40, FedEx moved into a portion of the former Kitty Hawk hub. Hangar No. 40 was demolished between March and April 2013.
Fort Wayne Municipal Airport After the base was transferred to temporary inactive status, the city of Fort Wayne bought the airport from the federal government's General Services Administration for one dollar, renaming it Fort Wayne Municipal Airport in 1946, though, colloquially, the entire complex was still referred to as Baer Field, a practice reinforced by the reactivation of the airport for military purposes in 1951, to the point a race track adjacent to the property, Baer Field Raceway Park, which operated from 1964 to 2019, was named after it. Two passenger airlines initially served Baer Field: TWA and Chicago & Southern Airlines; United Airlines appeared in 1947 with one DC-3 each way a day. C&S merged with Delta Air Lines in 1953 and Delta is the airport's longest-serving carrier, having served the airport in one form or another ever since. In 1953 the airport's current terminal opened, replacing a converted military structure. The new permanent terminal had an air traffic control tower, an observation deck, and the "Look-Out Dining Room" restaurant with views of the ramp below. Late in the 1950s, Hilton Hotels opened the on-site Hilton Inn, which was sold in the 1980s as Hilton opened a hotel at the Grand Wayne Center. After Hilton sold the hotel, the on-airport Hilton was reflagged as first a Holiday Inn, and later became a Quality Inn and then a Days Inn. TWA, the first airline to serve Fort Wayne at what is now Smith Field, ended flights from Baer Field in 1963. Scheduled jet flights began in January 1967 on United Caravelles (United had been using the Vickers Viscount at Baer Field for several years). United's jets were soon joined by Delta Douglas DC-9s. American Airlines flights began in 1974, initially to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (which opened that year) on Boeing 727s.
Along with Delta, United, and later American, locally-based Hub Airlines and other regional airlines flew to the airport in the 1960s and 1970s. The airport was the largest in Indiana not served by airlines classified as local service airlines by the Civil Aeronautics Board (e.g. Allegheny Airlines and Ozark Air Lines). Eastern Air Lines was the only CAB regulation-era "Big Four" airline that never served Baer Field.
In 1981, Baer Field's 1953 terminal building was modernized and expanded with features like jetways to handle increased traffic brought on by the Airline Deregulation Act. During the period immediately following deregulation in the late 1970s through the early 1980s, Air Wisconsin, Piedmont Airlines (later US Airways), and Republic Airlines began service to Baer Field. American also changed their Fort Wayne flights from Dallas to Chicago O'Hare, while Air Wisconsin took over United's Chicago route in partnership with United and later as United Express. Air Wisconsin also had a maintenance base on the west side of the airport in the 1980s and 1990s that handled BAe 146, BAe ATP, and later Canadair Regional Jet aircraft. After Air Wisconsin closed the maintenance base, Shuttle America briefly used the hangar before it lost its US Airways Express affiliation, flying passengers to the US Airways Pittsburgh hub. The former Air Wisconsin hangar was later used by Endeavor Air, and is presently in use by SkyWest. In 1985, management of Baer Field was transferred from the City of Fort Wayne to the newly established Fort Wayne-Allen County Airport Authority, with a board composed of equal numbers of City of Fort Wayne and Allen County officials.
Fort Wayne International Airport In 1991 Baer Field was renamed Fort Wayne International Airport; the terminal was renamed to continue honoring Paul Frank Baer. Through the 1990s the airport underwent the largest expansion and revitalization in its history. Between 1994 and 1997, the terminal was again expanded, with design by MSKTD & Associates, Inc. Other improvements included runway upgrades and the Air Trade Center on the southwest side of the property. In 1998, Fort Wayne International Airport started advertising the airport to the general public for the first time. That same year, Delta ended its mainline jet service to Atlanta. Although this ended a tradition of service dating back to Chicago & Southern Airlines when the airport was converted to civil use in the 1940s, Delta continued to serve the airport via Delta Connection regional jets to Atlanta and Cincinnati. Other airlines serving the airport, including United, Northwest, and American, followed Delta's lead in introducing regional jets such as the Canadair Regional Jet, Fairchild Dornier 328JET, Avro RJ85, and the Embraer ERJ-145 to the airport. Turboprops such as the Saab 340, Beechcraft 1900, ATR 72, and Dash 8 also continued to play a role for flights to destinations such as Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Detroit, occasionally alongside larger jets such as the DC-9, Fokker 100, and Boeing 737 on the same routes.