One of the many Texas Engineering Landmarks in celebration of Texas ASCE’s Centennial: 1913-2013 “Engineering a Better Texas.” Visit them all!
NOTE: Coordinates are for the center of the airport; viewing from the ground can be enjoyed from many vantages, particularly the designated Founders Plaza Observation Area off N Airfield Dr in Grapevine – N 32° 55.124 W 097° 03.542 (open daily from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.)( (
visit link) ).
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DALLAS/FORT WORTH REGIONAL (INTERNATIONAL) AIRPORT, TEXAS SECTION ASCE OUTSTANDING CIVIL ENGINEERING ACHIEVEMENT AWARD 1975
Dallas/Fort Worth Regional Airport (renamed “International” in 1985) had its first arrival, American Airlines Flight 341, on January 13, 1974.
Political jockeying for metro “air superiority” had been ongoing between Dallas and Fort Worth since the 1930s. A 1927 proposal for a joint venture fell prey to municipal ego and competing airports: Dallas’ Love Field and For Worth’s Meacham Field. The latter moved to Amon Carter Field in 1953 – only 12 miles from Love Field. In 1960 Fort Worth purchased Amon Carter Field and renamed it Greater Southwest International Airport in an attempt to compete with Dallas' Love Field, but GSW's traffic declined, and by the mid-1960s Fort Worth was getting a scant 1% of Texas air traffic to Dallas’ 49%.
The joint airport proposal was revisited in 1961 after the FAA refused to invest more money in separate Dallas and Fort Worth airports. GSW was abandoned, and Dallas’ Love Field quickly became congested with no room to expand. Still there was bickering. In 1964 the Feds warned they would unilaterally choose a site if the cities could not come to an agreement in 180 days. Pressured into a “shotgun wedding,” officials from the two cities finally agreed on a location north of the abandoned GSW and almost equidistant from the two city centers. The land was purchased by both cities in 1966, and ground was broken on the Dallas/Fort Worth Regional Airport in 1968, bordering the cities of Euless, Grapevine, and Irving.
Under the original 1967 airport design, DFW was to have pier-shaped terminals perpendicular to a central highway. In 1968, the design was revised to provide for semicircular terminals, which served to isolate loading and unloading areas from the central highway, and to provide additional room for parking in each semicircle’s center. Thirteen terminals were specified in the original airport plan, plus a nine-mile parkway, 234 boarding gates, and up to 11 runways covering 27 square miles. DFW opened for passengers in 1974 with three runways and four terminals (each 790,000 square feet of covered space and able to accommodate eighteen Boeing 747s). The terminals were connected with the first fully automated transit system in the world, Airtrans, which could move 9,000 people, 6,000 bags, and 70,000 pounds of mail per hour. (Currently, amongst continual upgrades, there are seven runways and five terminals with 155 gates, joined in 2005 by the Skylink automated people movers – at its opening the world’s largest airport train system.)
Enough concrete and asphalt were used on the runways and roads to pave a four-lane expressway from Dallas to Oklahoma City.
Upon opening, DFW also featured a first-of-its-kind air traffic control tower, rising 232 feet, with two separate control cabs for the two sets of parallel 11,400-foot runways, and a bank of equipment for visual and radar displays. The eleven-sided tower cab is the only one of its kind in the world. Now called “DFW Central Control Tower,” it is now one of three. (According to a placard in Founders Plaza Observation Area (DFW’s public observation park), DFW is the only airport with 3 air traffic control towers.)
DFW held an open house and dedication ceremony on September 20–22, 1973, which included the first landing of a supersonic Concorde in the United States (an Air France aircraft en route from Caracas to Paris). It opened for commercial service as Dallas/Fort Worth Regional Airport on January 13, 1974 with the arrival of American Airlines Flight 341, New York to Dallas via Memphis and Little Rock, touching down exactly on time.
Initial construction took five years at a cost of $700 million. From 1974 to 1988 an additional $600 million was spent on expansion and improvements. In 1988, under the threat of increased noise and reduced property values, the cities of Irving, Euless, and Grapevine began a legal battle against planned expansion of the airport. The Supreme Court sided with the airport in 1994.
Renamed in 1985, in 1988 Dallas–Fort Worth International Airport was the fourth largest airport in the world, as 42,000,000 passengers enplaned there on 635,000 flights. In 2001 the airport served 27,271,848 passengers and was the 5th -busiest airport in the world. In 2013 DFW was 3rd in terms of operations and 10th in terms of passengers worldwide (statistics from the official DFW website below).
Records:
Owner- Joint ownership by the Cities of Dallas and Fort Worth
Engineer- unnamed/unknown
Architect- Gyo Obata, Helmuth Obata & Kassebaum
Contractor- unnamed/unknown
DFW FAST FACTS (http://www.dfwairport.com/visitor/P1_009559.php)
* DFW covers more than 26.9 square miles
* Real property consists of 17,207 acres
* Year Opened: 1974
* World Rankings:
- 3rd in terms of operations
- 10th in terms of passengers
* 7 Runways:
- 17L/35R is 8,500 feet long
- 17C/35C is 13,400 feet long
- 17R/35L is 13,400 feet long
- 18L/36R is 13,400 feet long
- 18R/36L is 13,400 feet long
- 13L/31R is 9,000 feet long
- 13R/31L is 9,300 feet long
* 155 Gates
* Hourly Operations:
- 279 VFR – highest in the United States
- 186 IFR – higher than most other airports’ optimum ranking
* 2013 Total Operations: 678,059
* 2013 Total Cargo: 652,303 U.S. tons
DESTINATIONS AND AIRLINES
* 204 Total Destinations:
* 24 Passenger Airlines:
- Domestic: 11
- Foreign Flag: 13
* Every major city in the continental United States
can be accessed within four hours
EMPLOYMENT AND ECONOMIC OUTPUT
* DFW Airport Board Employees: Approximately 1,800
* On-Airport Employees: Approximately 60,000
* Economic Activity Across North Texas Attributable to DFW
- Total Economic Output: $31.6 billion
- Full-Time Jobs: 143,000
- Payroll: $9.4 billion
PASSENGERS
* Daily Passengers: Approximately 165,580
* 2013 Total Passengers: 60,436,739
* 2013 Total International Passengers: 6,693,542
* 2013 Passenger Makeup:
- 56% connecting
- 44% local
INFRASTRUCTURE
* Terminal Names and Service:
- A, B, C, E: Domestic service
- D: International and Domestic service
* Terminal Renewal and Improvement Program (TRIP) $2.34 Billion
- Terminals A, B, C, E
- Began in February 2011
- Expected completion December 2018
- Enhanced Concessions
- Expanded/ Reconfigured Security Checkpoints
- Enhanced Self-Service Ticketing Areas
- Improved Parking
- Highly Efficient Green Technology Implementation
Further Reading:
Wikipedia “Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport” (
visit link)
“D/FW at 40: The airport that made Dallas-Fort Worth take off” (
visit link)
“A shotgun wedding 40 years ago spurred the D/FW economic bonanza we have today” (
visit link)
“D/FW Airport turns 40” Dallas News slide show: (
visit link)
“40th Anniversary: DFW ready to soar into the future" (
visit link)
Handbook of Texas Online “DALLAS-FORT WORTH INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT” (
visit link)
Star-Telegram “DFW Airport's history” (
visit link)
Wikipedia “DFW Skylink” (
visit link)
Wikipedia “Vought Airtrans” (
visit link)
“DFW CELEBRATES REDEDICATION OF AIRPORT ON 30TH ANNIVERSARY” (
visit link)
“Architecture: D/FW Airport, a ‘no-nonsense’ monument, hits middle age “ (
visit link)