The History of John F. Kennedy Airport
The Challenging Construction Process of JFK Airport
Conceived to relieve congestion at LaGuardia Field, which was the city’s main airport at the time, in 1941, New York City mayor Fiorello LaGuardia selected a tract of land in Queens, New York that included the Idlewild Beach Golf Course. Before beginning construction of the mammoth new airport, however, a major landfill project was required, as the area was mainly marshy tidelands. Wartime restrictions further slowed the pace of construction as did design revisions – the new airport needed to accommodate bigger and heavier aircraft as well as increased aviation traffic. Longer runways were required, thus more land was acquired.
The airport was originally slated to begin operating in mid-1945 but financial, access and labor issues delayed the process as did disputes regarding rents charged to airlines. New York International Airport was finally opened on July 1, 1948, and the airport was officially dedicated on July 31, 1948. The first commercial arrival to the airport was a Peruvian International Airlines flight from Santiago, Chile on July 9, 1948.
In the decades since, JFK Airport has undergone further construction and enlargement. At the time of this writing, the airport has five operating terminals and four runways; it covers almost five thousand acres (around 21 square kilometers) and saw more than 55 million passengers in 2022.
JFK Airport entered the ‘Jet Age’ in 1958, when the Boeing 707 came into service at the airport.
From Idlewild Airport to John F. Kennedy: A Heartbreaking Tale
While the airport’s official name was New York International Airport, it was commonly known as ‘Idlewild’. Following the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy in Dallas on November 22, 1963, the US Senate decided to rename the airport to honor Kennedy’s memory.
Some key statistics on John F. Kennedy Airport
- JFK Airport is one of New York City’s three major airports. LaGuardia Airport (in Queens, New York) and Newark Liberty International Airport (in Newark, New Jersey) are the other main airports serving the New York City metropolitan area. These airports are among the five airports run by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
- JFK is one of the busiest airports in the United States, serving approximately 60 million passengers per year.
- It is also a US airport with the highest international passenger traffic.
- John F. Kennedy Airport is served by more than 70 airlines and has eight terminals, with five terminals currently in operation.
- John F. Kennedy Airport handles around 62 million passengers a year and provides 280,000 jobs directly and indirectly; it generates more than $51 billion in sales and $17.1 billion in wages.
- İstanbul is certainly one of JFK Airport’s busiest routes. Millions of passengers flew from JFK Airport to İstanbul in 2019. If you are planning a trip to New York, you can browse flights on the New York flight ticket page.
Films and television series filmed at John F. Kennedy Airport
Throughout its history, John F. Kennedy International Airport has been featured in numerous TV shows and films – according to Apex Insight, JFK ranks eighth among the Top 20 Airports Featured on TV & Film.
- JFK Airport serves as a backdrop for scenes in Steven Spielberg’s 2002 film Catch Me If You Can, which is based on a true story.
- Several scenes in Martin Scorsese’s much-talked-about 2019 film The Irishman take place at JFK Airport.
- Many scenes in Die Hard with a Vengeance, the third movie in the Die Hard franchise, were shot at JFK Airport.
- Viktor Navorski, the protagonist played by Tom Hanks in The Terminal, is a passenger stuck at JFK Airport.
- Some of the main characters in the Mad Men television series, which depicts New York’s advertising industry in the 1960s, feature in the story of John F. Kennedy Airport in one of the series’ episodes.
