Early history in the distance Sky Harbor Airport's evocative name was conceived by J. Parker Van Zandt, the owner of
Scenic Airways, who purchased 278 acres of farmland for Scenic's winter operations in November 1928. Sky Harbor was not only named but founded and built by Van Zandt in late 1928. He immediately commenced building a 100 x 120 foot airplane hangar and through early 1929 built one runway. This was the fourth airport built in
Phoenix. 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.
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.
Arizona 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.
Bonanza Airlines began service by 1951 with a route to
Las Vegas and
Reno making several stops at smaller communities. 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. 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. Hughes Airwest was then merged into
Republic Airlines in 1980 which continued the Phoenix hub operation until the mid-1980s.
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.
Bonanza Air Lines moved its headquarters from Las Vegas to Phoenix in 1966. Bonanza merged with two other airlines to form Air West, which became
Hughes Airwest after
Howard Hughes bought it in 1970. After the
Airline Deregulation Act was signed in 1978, many new airlines began service to Sky Harbor. In 1978, former Hughes Airwest executive Ed Beauvais formed a plan for a new airline based in Phoenix. He founded
America West Airlines in 1981, which began service from Phoenix in 1983 and doubled in size during its first year. America West filed for
Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 1991 and sold its larger aircraft and Japanese route authority, but continued growing its domestic operations from Terminal 4 in cooperation with
Continental Airlines. Although AWA enjoyed further growth at Phoenix during the 1990s the aftermath of the
September 11 attacks strained its financial position. AWA ended its relationship with Continental and merged with
US Airways in 2005. US Airways moved its headquarters to the AWA campus in Tempe and retained many AWA managers to run the merged company. US Airways was then merged into
American Airlines in 2015 which continues to build upon the largest hub operation at Phoenix Sky Harbor. In May 2025,
Starlux Airlines announced they would launch service in 2026 to
Taipei, Taiwan, on an
Airbus A350 aircraft, marking the first time an airline announced non stop service to Asia from the airport. On 25 July 2025 China Airlines announced that it will start nonstop flights to Taipei, starting on December of that year.
Facilities expansions and growth After
World War II, the airport began work on a new passenger terminal, as well as a new parallel runway and a diagonal runway. On the February 1953 C&GS diagram runways 8L and 8R are each long and runway 3 is . The $835,000 Terminal 1 (originally called the West Wing), which also had the first
control tower, opened in October 1952. Terminal 2 was designed by the Phoenix architectural firms of Weaver & Drover and
Lescher & Mahoney and opened in 1962. Terminal 2 also featured a high and wide mural composed of 52 different materials, including mosaic glass, gemstones, shells, and vintage toys.
The Phoenix, designed by the late French-American artist and full-time resident of Phoenix
Paul Coze, was commissioned in 1960 as Phoenix's first work of public art and was installed in 1962 in the main lobby area of the terminal.
The Phoenix was relocated to the Rental Car Center in 2021 following the decommissioning and demolition of Terminal 2. In November 2006, a Military and Veterans Hospitality Room, sponsored by the Phoenix Military and Veterans Commission, was opened in Terminal 2. It has since relocated to Terminal 4 as the new
USO club. This terminal underwent two renovation projects. The first was completed in 1988. The second project, which cost $24 million and was designed by DWL Architects + Planners, Inc., was completed in 2007. It opened on November 2, 1990, with four concourses: N2 and N3 on the north side and S3 and S4 on the south side. In 1994 the N4 International Concourse was opened, adding 10 gates and a sterile walkway to the S4 concourse. In 1997 construction began on the 14-gate N1 concourse for America West Airlines. It was completed in June 1998 at a cost of $50 million, completing the expansion of the north side of the terminal. On the south side of the terminal, construction began in 2002 on the eight-gate S2 concourse for Southwest Airlines. This project was completed in 2004 and has a different architectural design from the other six concourses. The eighth and final concourse for Terminal 4, S1 (South 1), with gates D11–D18, began construction in May 2019. Terminal 4 is named after former Arizona
Senator and 1964
Presidential candidate
Barry M. Goldwater. After Goldwater's death in 1998, the then-mayor of Phoenix,
Skip Rimsza, proposed renaming the airport in Goldwater's memory but was deluged with public support for the familiar "Sky Harbor" name. Terminal 4, designed by DWL Architects + Planners, Inc., is the largest and busiest of the two terminals with 86 (now 92) gates, divided into eight satellite concourses connected behind security.
Recent developments In February 2020, Terminal 2 accepted its final flight and was then decommissioned. Demolition occurred in early 2021 with the terminal being replaced by concrete stands for aircraft, accessible by bus from other terminals. Airlines previously using Terminal 2 were relocated to Terminal 3, which had completed renovations in January 2020. In January 2021, Terminal 3 was renamed in honor of Senator
John McCain by the Phoenix City Council. In February 2024, the airport announced plans for infrastructure upgrades at its central utility plant in Terminal 4, which will improve air conditioning at the airport. The $36 million project was funded by a FAA Airport Terminal Program grant included in the federal
Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that was signed into law by then-President
Joe Biden. On April 29, 2024, Phoenix Mayor
Kate Gallego announced that a new terminal would be constructed on the west end of the property near the former location of Terminal 2. She said that in 2023 the airport welcomed more than 48 million passengers and with continued growth expected the new terminal was needed to accommodate growing demand and handle the increased number of travelers. The terminal would feature a new customs facility and would be designed to have net-zero
greenhouse gas emissions, making it an environmentally friendly structure. The terminal is expected to break ground in 2029 and open in 2033. In 2024, the airport surpassed 50 million passengers in a single calendar year, an all-time record for the facility. ==Facilities==