Since airline deregulation in 1978, Phoenix has seen numerous new air carriers begin service including United Airlines in 1980 and Southwest Airlines in 1982.Īfter World War II the airport began work on a new passenger terminal, as well as a new parallel runway and a diagonal runway. Western Airlines came to Sky Harbor in 1957 with flights to Denver, Los Angeles and San Diego, Continental Airlines came in 1961 to El Paso, Los Angeles, and Tucson, and Delta Air Lines began flights to Dallas by 1969. Hughes Airwest was then merged into Republic Airlines in 1980 which continued the Phoenix hub operation until the mid-1980s. Bonanza merged with two other carriers to become Air West in 1968 and was changed to Hughes Airwest in 1970 adding several new routes, including service to Mexico, creating a hub at Phoenix. New routes to Salt Lake City and Southern California were added in the 1960s along with nonstop flights to Las Vegas and Reno aboard Douglas DC-9 jets by 1965. TWA began service to San Francisco in 1938 and added Phoenix onto its transcontinental network by 1944 with flights to Los Angeles and eastward to New York stopping at Albuquerque, Kansas City, and many more cities.Īrizona Airways began intrastate service within Arizona in 1946 and merged into Frontier Airlines in 1950 which added new routes to Denver, Albuquerque, and El Paso.īonanza Airlines began service by 1951 with a route to Las Vegas and Reno making several stops at smaller communities. American extended the route eastward to New York by way of Dallas, Nashville, and many other cities making for a southern transcontinental route across the United States. Standard was acquired by American Airways in 1930 which later became American Airlines. Standard operated a route between Los Angeles and El Paso stopping at Phoenix, Tucson, and Douglas, Arizona. Standard Air Lines had been serving Phoenix since late 1927 at a different airport and began landing at Sky Harbor on August 5, 1929. On February 23, 1929, Maddux Air Lines began the airport's first scheduled passenger service with a route between San Francisco and El Paso stopping in Phoenix, Los Angeles, and several other cities however the service was short lived, ending by autumn 1929. Scenic Airways, lacking funds after the infamous Stock Market Crash of 1929, sold the airport to Acme Investment Company, which owned the airport until 1935, when the city of Phoenix purchased Sky Harbor airport from Acme for $100,000. Sky Harbor was built in late 1928 through early 1929 initially with one runway and was the fourth airport built in Phoenix.

However, the reasoning for the name is apparently unknown. Parker Van Zandt, the owner of Scenic Airways, in 1928. Sky Harbor Airport's evocative name was conceived by J. History Aerial view of the new control tower in the foreground, and the old control tower in the background, with Terminal 3 in between, looking southwest Sky Harbor's Control Tower with downtown Phoenix in the distance American Airlines aircraft at Terminal 4 In addition to its domestic role as a National Guard unit, answering to the Governor of Arizona, the 161 ARW also performs both a stateside and overseas role as a USAF organization, supporting air refueling and air mobility missions worldwide. One of two flying units in the Arizona ANG, the 161 ARW flies the KC-135R Stratotanker aircraft. The military enclave is known as the Goldwater Air National Guard Base. The airport is also home to the 161st Air Refueling Wing (161 ARW), an Air Mobility Command (AMC)–gained unit of the Arizona Air National Guard. The airport serves as a hub for American Airlines and a base for Southwest Airlines. It is Arizona's largest and busiest airport, and among the largest commercial airports in the United States in 2021, PHX was the 8th-busiest airport in the United States and 22nd-busiest in the world. Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport ( IATA: PHX, ICAO: KPHX, FAA LID: PHX), commonly referred to as Sky Harbor Airport or simply Sky Harbor, is a civil–military public airport 3 miles (2.6 nmi 4.8 km) east of downtown Phoenix, in Maricopa County, Arizona, United States.

Main hub of southwest airlines map