20th century tower in December 2006 A group of
Houston businessmen purchased the site for Bush Intercontinental Airport in 1957 to preserve it until the city of Houston could formulate a plan for a new airport as a replacement for
William P. Hobby Airport (at the time known as Houston International Airport). The holding company for the land was named the Jet Era Ranch Corporation, but a typographical error transformed the words "Jet Era" into "Jetero" and the airport site subsequently became known as the Jetero airport site. Although the name Jetero was no longer used in official planning documents after 1961, the airport's eastern entrance was named Jetero Boulevard. Most of Jetero Boulevard was later renamed
Will Clayton Parkway. The City of Houston
annexed the Intercontinental Airport area in 1965. This annexation, along with the 1965 annexations of the Bayport area, the Fondren Road area, and an area west of
Sharpstown, resulted in a gain of of land for the city.
Houston Intercontinental Airport, which was the original name for the airport, opened in June 1969. The airport's IATA code of IAH derived from the stylization of the airport's name as "Intercontinental Airport of Houston." All scheduled passenger airline service formerly operated from
William P. Hobby Airport moved to Intercontinental upon the airport's completion. Hobby remained open as a
general aviation airport and was once again used for scheduled passenger airline jet service two years later when
Southwest Airlines initiated
intrastate airline service nonstop between Hobby and
Dallas Love Field in 1971. In the late 1980s,
Houston City Council considered a plan to rename the airport after
Mickey Leland—an African-American
U.S. Congressman who died in an
aviation accident in
Ethiopia. Instead of renaming the whole airport, the city named Mickey Leland International Arrivals Building, which would later become Mickey Leland Terminal D, after the congressman. In April 1997, Houston City Council unanimously voted to rename the airport
George Bush Intercontinental Airport/Houston, after
George H. W. Bush, the 41st president of the United States. The name change took effect on May 2, 1997. On August 28, 1990, Continental Airlines agreed to build its maintenance center at George Bush Intercontinental Airport; Continental agreed to do so because the city of Houston agreed to provide city-owned land near the airport. At the time of the opening of IAH in 1969, domestic scheduled passenger airline flights were being operated by
American Airlines, Braniff International Airways, Continental Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Eastern Air Lines, National Airlines and Houston-based
Texas International Airlines, which had formerly operated as Trans-Texas Airways. International flights at this time were being flown by Pan American World Airways with ten nonstop flights a week operated with
Boeing 707 jetliners to Mexico City;
KLM Royal Dutch Airlines operating
Douglas DC-8 jets four days a week to Amsterdam via an intermediate stop in Montreal; Braniff International with
Boeing 727 services several times a week to
Panama City, Panama; and Aeronaves de Mexico (now
Aeroméxico) flying
Douglas DC-9 jets to
Monterrey,
Guadalajara,
Puerto Vallarta,
Acapulco and Mexico City several days a week. Texas International was also operating direct services to Mexico at this time with
Douglas DC-9 jets to
Monterrey and
Convair 600 turboprop flights to
Tampico and
Veracruz. KLM introduced
Boeing 747 services in 1971 and by 1974
Air France was operating four nonstop Boeing 747 flights a week to both Paris and Mexico City. Also in 1974, Continental and National were operating
McDonnell Douglas DC-10 wide body jetliners into IAH while Delta was flying
Lockheed L-1011 TriStar wide body jets with both types being operated on respective domestic routes from the airport by these airlines; with National also operating Boeing 747s on a Miami–Houston–Los Angeles routing. By the late 1970s,
Cayman Airways had begun nonstop flights between
Grand Cayman in the Caribbean and Intercontinental with
BAC One-Eleven jets. Cayman Airways served the airport for many years, operating a variety of aircraft including
Boeing 727-200,
Boeing 737-200,
Boeing 737-300,
Boeing 737-400 and
Douglas DC-8 jetliners into IAH in addition to the BAC One-Eleven. In 1977,
British Caledonian, commenced nonstop flights between London's
Gatwick Airport and Houston with
Boeing 707 service, and later with
DC-10 and
Boeing 747-200 service.
British Airways continued operating the route, when in December 1987, BA took over B-Cal increasing its frequency on the route to double-daily. By July 1983, the number of domestic and international air carriers serving Intercontinental had grown substantially. American, Continental, Delta and Eastern had been joined by
Piedmont Airlines, Southwest Airlines,
TWA, United Airlines,
USAir and
Western Airlines. Western was operating daily
McDonnell Douglas DC-10 wide body jet services nonstop to
Salt Lake City at this time, with this flight also offering one-stop services to
Anchorage, Alaska. International services were being operated by
Air Canada,
Aviateca,
British Caledonian Airways, Continental Airlines, Eastern Air Lines,
SAHSA,
South African Airways, TACA, TWA and
Viasa in addition to Pan Am, KLM, Air France, Aeroméxico and Cayman Airways. Several commuter and regional airlines were also operating passenger services at this time from IAH including
Emerald Air (operating as
Pan Am Express), Metro Airlines,
Rio Airways and
Royale Airlines. ,
Air France,
British Airways, and
KLM aircraft Since Houston was not an approved gateway for U.S. to
London Heathrow flights under the
Bermuda II Agreement,
Continental Airlines, and
British Airways flew their London services to
London Gatwick. British Airways, keen to allow its passengers access to connections at its larger
Heathrow Airport hub, subsequently flew various routings from Houston to Heathrow, via a gateway approved technical stop, allowing its Houston originating flights to land at Heathrow. While keeping a daily Houston–Gatwick flight, British Airways operated a flight from Houston to Heathrow via
Washington-Dulles, with the technical stop being later changed to
Chicago-O'Hare and finally to
Detroit. In March 2008, the Bermuda II agreement was replaced with the EU–US
Open Skies Agreement, allowing Continental Airlines and British Airways to switch its London services from Houston to Heathrow Airport that summer. Gate BA presently operates double-daily flights to London's Heathrow Airport with
Boeing 777 and
Boeing 787 service. As of 2007,
Terminals A and B remain from the airport's original design.
Lewis W. Cutrer Terminal C opened in 1981, the Mickey Leland International Arrivals Building (now called Terminal D) opened in May 1990, and the new Terminal E partially opened on June 3, 2003. The rest of Terminal E opened on January 7, 2004. Terminal D is the arrival point for all international flights except for United flights, which use Terminal E. Flights from Canada on Air Canada and WestJet arrive in terminal A. Terminal D also held customs and
INS until the opening of the new Federal Inspection Service (FIS) building, completed on January 25, 2005. On January 7, 2009, a Continental Airlines
Boeing 737-800 departing Bush Intercontinental was the first U.S. commercial jet to fly on a mix of conventional
jet fuel and
biofuel. In December 2009, the Houston City Council approved a plan to allow Midway Cos. to develop of land owned by
Houston Airport System (HAS) on the grounds of Bush Airport. Midway planned to develop a travel center for the airport's rental car facility. The city dictated the developer needed to place a convenience store and gas station facility, a flight information board, a fast casual restaurant, and a sit-down restaurant in the development. Beyond the required buildings, the developer planned to add an office facility of between and additional retail space. In 2011, United Airlines began
Boeing 777-200ER services to
Lagos, Nigeria; this was the airport's first nonstop flight to the Africa. In May 2016, United ended the Houston–Lagos service, citing the inability to repatriate revenue sold locally in Nigerian currency after the Nigerian government restricted currency transfers out of the country.
South African Airways previously operated nonstop
Boeing 747SP services in 1983 between Houston and
Amilcar Cabral International Airport in the
Cape Verde islands off the coast of Africa as a refueling stop for its flights between Houston and
Johannesburg, South Africa. Continental was also planning to commence nonstop
Boeing 787 services to
Auckland in New Zealand but these plans were canceled as a reaction to new international flights at Hobby Airport announced by
Southwest Airlines. United — which acquired Continental and had fully integrated it into the United brand by early 2012 — had postponed the introduction of this service owing to delays associated with the
Boeing 787 Dreamliner. Its 787s were put to use on other international routes, however, including Houston–London and United's then-new Houston–Lagos nonstop flights. The Houston–Auckland nonstop route was then begun by
Air New Zealand using a
Boeing 777-200ER. In 2014, United added a second daily flight to Tokyo and new routes to Munich, Germany; Santiago, Chile; and Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, and it restarted the Aruba route, which had been canceled in 2012. In August 2012,
Lufthansa switched its daily Houston–Frankfurt route to an
Airbus A380 from a
Boeing 747-400, making Houston the first airport in Texas to receive A380 service. In addition, Lufthansa has also operated the
Boeing 747-8 on the route. As of 2026, Dubai-based carrier
Emirates also operates the A380 on the Dubai-Houston route. IAH became the first airport in North America to have nonstop flights to every inhabited continent in 2017, with the addition of
Air New Zealand, but lost this claim when
Atlas Air ended its nonstop flight to
Luanda. The airport regained this status in December 2019 when
Ethiopian Airlines launched service to
Lomé in
Togo and
Addis Ababa in
Ethiopia. It has since lost this status again. On September 7, 2017, United announced the launch of flights from Houston to
Sydney, using a 787-9. The Houston–Sydney service, at , is currently United's longest nonstop route. Additionally, it surpassed
Emirates' Dubai route as the longest flight at IAH. As of April 2026, Houston to Sydney is the longest nonstop route on any US airline, and the 11th longest passenger flight in the world. In 2024, however, Southwest suspended the service to Bush airport once again. On July 20, 2022,
Spirit Airlines crew base plans were cleared. It was also announced that Spirit will bring 500 new jobs to the Houston Area. They added Bush airport as their tenth crew base and Focus city. In 2020, George Bush Intercontinental Airport began undergoing a $1.3 billion capital improvement program called the IAH Terminal Redevelopment Program (ITRP). The flagship project of this program is the construction of the Mickey Leland International Terminal (MLIT), which will consolidate what is today Terminal D and Terminal E into one centralized terminal including a shared ticketing, departure, and arrival hall. Terminal D will be extensively refurbished with a new concourse, Pier D West, being constructed. The ITRP should be complete by late 2024 or early 2025. Future expansion plans call for a Central D and East D pier to be built as passenger numbers grow, with the full project being capable of handling 33 million enplaned international passengers annually. The roof of the new terminal is also rumored to feature eVTOL Vertiport gates for United. On December 2, 2025,
ITA Airways announced the first ever nonstop flight from Houston to
Rome, using the
Airbus A330-900, starting on May 1, 2026. ITA is expected to join the
Star Alliance in early 2026, and has launched a codeshare agreement with United, a hub airline at IAH. ==Facilities==