, originally an air terminal opened in 1940 Hobby Airport opened in June 1927 as a private landing field in a pasture known as W.T. Carter Field. In the 1930s, it was served by
Braniff International Airways and
Eastern Air Lines. The site was acquired by the city of Houston and was named
Houston Municipal Airport in 1937. The airport was renamed
Howard R. Hughes Airport in 1938.
Howard Hughes was responsible for several improvements to the airport, including its first control tower, built in 1938. Chicago & Southern flew nonstop to New Orleans, the sole purpose being to connect to the airline's daily
Douglas DC-4 "Caribbean Comet" flights between New Orleans and Havana, Cuba;
Kingston, Jamaica, and
Caracas, Venezuela, as Chicago & Southern did not then have local traffic rights between Houston and New Orleans. In 1954, Delta, operating as "Delta C&S", was flying a daily
Convair 340 Houston – New Orleans – Havana, Cuba –
Port au Prince, Haiti –
Ciudad Trujillo (now
Santo Domingo),
Dominican Republic –
San Juan, Puerto Rico. Also in 1954, an expanded terminal building opened to support the 53,640 airline flights that carried 910,047 passengers. The airport was renamed Houston International Airport the same year. The April 1957
Official Airline Guide lists 26 weekday departures on Eastern, 20 on Braniff (plus four departures a week to/from South America), nine on
Continental Airlines, nine on Delta Air Lines, nine on
Trans-Texas Airways, four on
National Airlines, two on
Pan American World Airways and one on
American Airlines. There were nonstops to New York City and Washington, D.C., but not to Chicago or Denver or anywhere west of Colorado. Later in 1957,
KLM Royal Dutch Airlines started
Douglas DC-7C flights to
Amsterdam via
Montreal. In 1958, Delta was operating daily nonstop
Douglas DC-7s to New York City and weekly DC-7s direct to Caracas, Venezuela, via New Orleans (Delta called this latter service the "El Petrolero") Delta would introduce Convair 880 flights nonstop to Chicago
O'Hare Airport, St. Louis and New Orleans from Houston in addition to its service to New York City. Eastern
Boeing 720s flew nonstop to New York
JFK Airport, Atlanta, New Orleans and San Antonio and direct to Boston and Philadelphia. By 1966, Houston-based
Trans-Texas Airways (
TTa) had introduced
Douglas DC-9-10s with nonstop flights to Dallas Love Field, Corpus Christi and Baton Rouge and direct to New Orleans. (Hobby's 7600-ft runways would have been too short for 707 nonstop service to Hawaii.) Houston Intercontinental Airport (IAH), now George Bush Intercontinental Airport, opened in June 1969; the airlines moved to Intercontinental and Hobby was left with no scheduled passenger service. The
Civil Aeronautics Administration recommended years earlier that Houston plan to replace Hobby.
International service in the 1960s Previously,
KLM and
Pan American World Airways (
Pan Am) operated international flights from the International Building at Hobby until the late 1960s. In 1966,
Pan Am was operating a daily
Boeing 707 flight nonstop to
Mexico City with continuing, no change of plane service to
Guatemala City, Guatemala;
San Salvador, El Salvador;
Managua, Nicaragua;
San José, Costa Rica; and
Panama City, Panama. In 1969, both airlines moved to IAH and the International Building was demolished.
Braniff International operated international service as well from the airport and in the spring of 1966 was operating nonstop Boeing 707 and
Boeing 720 jet service twice a week to Panama City, Panama, with connections in Panama to other Braniff flights to South America. Also in 1966, Braniff was operating a joint international service via an
interchange agreement with Pan Am to
London, England, and
Frankfurt, Germany, on a daily basis with Boeing 707 jetliners via intermediate stops at
Dallas Love Field and
Chicago O'Hare Airport.
Trans-Texas Airways also served Mexico and in 1968 was operating direct, no change of plane service from Hobby with
Convair 600 turboprops eleven times a week to
Monterrey and six times a week to
Tampico and
Veracruz via south Texas.
Resumption of airline service The first airline to resume passenger flights was
Houston Metro Airlines, a commuter airline, which in early 1970 was flying "cross town" service with
de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otters between Hobby and Houston Intercontinental Airport (IAH) with 14 weekday round trips. Both
Braniff International and
Texas International resumed jet service into Hobby with nonstops to Dallas in competition with Southwest. Hughes Airwest (owned by
Howard Hughes) was flying nonstop to Las Vegas, Phoenix and Tucson and direct to Burbank (now
Bob Hope Airport) and Orange County (now
John Wayne Airport) while Ozark was flying nonstop to its hub in St. Louis; both airlines flew
McDonnell Douglas DC-9-30s. In the fall of 1991, the OAG listed main line flights to Hobby on
American Airlines,
Delta Air Lines,
Northwest Airlines,
Trans World Airlines (TWA) and
United Airlines in addition to Southwest.
Alaska Airlines also served Hobby in 1990 via an
interchange agreement with American Airlines which enabled direct Boeing 727-200s to Anchorage and Fairbanks via Dallas/Ft. Worth and Seattle. Only domestic US destinations and international destinations with border preclearance were being served, but in fall 2015 Southwest opened a new international terminal allowing it to fly to foreign cities. The headquarters for
TranStar Airlines (formerly
Muse Air before this new start up air carrier was acquired by
Southwest Airlines) were at the airport. Muse Air followed by TranStar operated a
hub at Hobby flying
McDonnell Douglas MD-80s, DC-9-50s and DC-9-30s nonstop to Austin, Brownsville, Texas, Dallas Love Field, Las Vegas, Los Angeles (
LAX), Lubbock, Ontario, California, McAllen, Texas, Miami, Midland/Odessa, New Orleans, Orlando, San Antonio, San Francisco, Tampa and Tulsa with direct service to San Diego and San Jose, California, at various times during the 1980s.
21st century In May 2011,
Southwest Airlines expressed interest in initiating new international flights from Hobby. On April 9, 2012, Houston Director of Aviation Mario Diaz announced support of international flights from Hobby after multiple studies of the economic impact on the entire city of Houston. On this day Southwest Airlines also debuted its new campaign, called Free Hobby. Supporters were asked to sign a petition. Southwest also started a website just for supporters of international flights from Hobby, freehobbyairport.com. United Airlines, Houston's other major carrier, which would later be forced to compete with Southwest on proposed international routes, objected to the expansion plans, citing a study which concludes that the change would cost the Houston area jobs and result in a net reduction in GRP. Houston Mayor
Annise Parker backed Southwest's fight to make Hobby an international airport on May 23, 2012. On May 30, 2012, Houston's city council approved Southwest's request for international flights from Hobby. The groundbreaking of the terminal expansion began in September 2013. Five new gates (two arrival/departure gates and three arrival only gates) were added to accommodate both
Boeing 737 and
Airbus A320 family aircraft. The expansion was estimated to have cost $156 million and was paid for by Southwest Airlines.
Frontier Airlines announced its return to the airport with direct flights to
Cancun,
Las Vegas, and
Orlando starting in May 2022. Just two months later Frontier Airlines announced a fourth flight from Hobby with a new
Denver route starting in September. ==Facilities==