Airports may also be regarded as emblematic of national pride and so the design may be architecturally ambitious. Designing an airport even for domestic traffic or as 'non-hub' has, from the beginning, required extensive co-ordination between users and interested parties – architects, engineers, managers and staff all need to be involved. The construction and operation of an international airport depends on a complicated set of decisions that are affected by technology, politics, economics and geography as well as both local and international law. Terminal expansion construction site in the background. Design and construction Finnair Airbus A319 at the Helsinki Airport in Vantaa, Finland. Other international airports, such as Kai Tak Airport in Hong Kong, have been decommissioned and replaced when they reached capacity or technological advances rendered them inadequate. The advent in the early 1960s of jet aircraft such as the Boeing 707 with the range to fly non-stop between Australia or New Zealand and Hawaii, meant that a mid-Pacific stop was no longer needed and the airport was closed to regular commercial use. Canton Island Airport, for example, in the Phoenix Islands ( Kiribati), after serving as a military airport during World War II, was used as a refuelling stop by commercial aircraft such as Qantas which stationed ground crew there in the late 1950s. International airports sometimes serve military as well as commercial purposes and their viability is also affected by technological developments. In Sydney, Rose Bay, New South Wales, was chosen as the flying-boat landing area.

At the far end of the longest international route (which became the Kangaroo Route), on-water landing areas were found in places such as Surabaya and in the open sea off Kupang. Since four-engined land planes were unavailable for over-water operations to international destinations, flying boats became part of the solution.

In the early days of international flights, infrastructure was limited, 'although if engine problems arose there were plenty of places where aircraft could land'. The precursors to international airports were airfields or aerodromes. In the United States, Douglas Municipal Airport in Arizona became the first international airport of the Americas in 1928. It was closed and supplanted by Croydon Airport in March 1920. In August 1919, Hounslow Heath Aerodrome, in London, England, was the first airport to operate scheduled international commercial services. History Qantas Empire Airways International Short Empire flying boat services arriving at Rose Bay, Sydney ( c. By the second decade of the 21st century, over 1,200 international airports existed with almost two billion international passengers along with 50 million metric tonnes of cargo passing through them annually. The physical structures that serve millions of individual passengers and flights are among the most complex and interconnected in the world. Detailed technical standards have been developed to ensure safety and common coding systems implemented to provide global consistency. International airports often also host domestic flights, which often help feed both passengers and cargo into international ones (and vice versa).īuildings, operations, and management have become increasingly sophisticated since the mid-20th century, when international airports began to provide infrastructure for international civilian flights. International airports are usually larger than domestic airports, and they must feature longer runways and have facilities to accommodate the heavier aircraft such as the Boeing 747 commonly used for international and intercontinental travel. San Francisco International Airport at night, with departure gates radiating out from the terminal building, aerobridges, apron and parked planesĪn international airport is an airport with customs and border control facilities enabling passengers to travel between countries around the world. Airport with facilities for international travel (border control and customs)

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