The original Ithaca Municipal Airport was west of downtown Ithaca, near the inlet of
Cayuga Lake. The site was identified as a likely flying field in 1914 by pilot
Charles Niles, who considered relocating to Ithaca to establish a practice field. In December 1914, the
Thomas Brothers Aeroplane Co. relocated to Ithaca and in 1915 established a flying school using the lake and a field near the inlet. Established prior to 1916, Ithaca Municipal Airport is believed to be the second airport to be established in New York state. The airport initially had two sod runways, but by 1937 it had a north/south asphalt runway and a turf landing strip. The turf runway was no longer in official guidebooks by 1940. Due to its lakeshore location, the airport also provided a dock and anchorage for
seaplanes. Bound by the
Lehigh Valley Railroad freight yards on the south side, the Cayuga Lake marshes on the north side and
fog in the lake valley, the growth potential for the airport was limited. The former airport site is now Cass Park, including a
hangar which was renovated in 1975 to house the
Hangar Theatre. In 1946,
Cornell University and the city of Ithaca began planning for a new airport on East Hill on the university-owned land in Lansing, New York. East Hill Airport opened in 1948 with
Robinson Airlines as its primary tenant. On July 1, 1956, the 23 parcels of land that made up the airport were conveyed by Cornell University to Tompkins County for the sum of $324,500 (). At that point, East Hill Airport was renamed Tompkins County Airport; it later was renamed Ithaca Tompkins Regional Airport. The original municipal airport was the base for
Aviation pioneer Cecil Robinson's
aerial photography missions. In 1945, shortly after the end of
World War II, he created Robinson Airlines at the municipal airport before transferring operations to the new East Hill Airport in 1948.
Expansion In 1994, a new, , $11-million terminal opened, replacing the cramped original building. Simultaneously, the runway was extended from to ; the runway was subsequently extended in 2009 to its present as part of a runway-safety extension project that added of additional takeoff pavement to Runway 14. Runway 32 has an
instrument landing system and a medium-intensity approach light system with runway alignment lights. Runway 14 has an instrument approach based on the VOR/DME at the airport. A short turf runway was commissioned parallel to the paved runway, but during the 1980s a north–south turf runway was west of the terminal building, about long and wide. Airline traffic peaked in 1990 at 226,813 passengers, The
2013 Federal sequester did not result in the closure of the airport's
control tower. The U.S. Department of Transportation restored the funding needed to support the continued operation of the Ithaca airport control tower. In 2014, Robert Nichols, who had been the airport's general manager since 1990, retired. On September 12, 2017, the airport announced that it had been awarded $2.4 million in grants from the
FAA to rehabilitate the general aviation tarmac, add new perimeter fencing and lighting and build a second passenger boarding bridge. Simultaneously,
United Airlines announced that it was upgrading its Ithaca to Newark service from 37-seat
Dash 8 turboprop aircraft to 50-seat
Embraer ERJ-145 commuter-jet aircraft, meaning that all commercial passenger flights to and from Ithaca would be aboard jet aircraft. On May 3, 2018, New York State Governor
Andrew Cuomo announced (at the airport) a new $22 million project to double the size of the 25-year-old airport terminal, adding six new gates, three new
jet bridges and a customs facility to allow international air travel to Ithaca, as well as expanded office space for the
Transportation Security Administration and the serving airlines. Cuomo returned to Ithaca on October 16, 2018, to help break-ground for the newly renamed "Ithaca-Tompkins International Airport." At groundbreaking, the total cost was expected to be $24.7 million, and the renovated terminal would include a restaurant and bar. The addition was designed by architecture firm C&S Companies. On July 12, 2018, the airport announced that
American Airlines would start nonstop service to Charlotte, North Carolina, with one weekly flight on Saturdays beginning in December, 2018 (operating daily as of March 2022). At the same time, United Airlines announced the cancellation of its service to Newark, replacing it with a nonstop to Washington-Dulles International Airport effective October 4 (canceled on March 2, 2022). The second phase of construction began in the spring of 2019 and was completed on December 20, 2019. Construction costs had increased to $14.2 million in state funding, $10 million in federal funding and $10.6 million from Tompkins County: $34.8 million. Due to the
COVID-19 pandemic, flights to and from
Philadelphia were dropped in September, 2020. ==Facilities==