The airport occupies 7,700 acres (3,116 ha) inWayne andDecatur townships in Marion County.[2][3] IND is home to the second largestFedEx Express hub in the world; only theFedEx SuperHub inMemphis, Tennessee, surpasses its cargo traffic. Largely because of FedEx's activity, IND consistently ranks among the top 10 busiest U.S. airports in terms of air cargo throughput.[4][5][6]Republic Airways is also headquartered at the airport, andAllegiant Air maintains Indianapolis as anoperating base.
Indianapolis Municipal Airport opened on September 24, 1931,[8] replacing the olderStout Field as the primary city airport. The airport was initially built on about 320 acres (130 ha) of land in the southwestern edge of the city, with an additional 627 acres (254 ha) reserved for future expansions at the airport.[9] In 1944, it was renamedWeir Cook Municipal Airport, afterUS Army Air Forces Col.Harvey Weir Cook ofWilkinson, Indiana, who had become aflying ace duringWorld War I with seven victories and had died flying aP-39 overNew Caledonia inWorld War II.
Aerial perspective of Indianapolis Municipal Airport under development in October 1930.
Indianapolis was one of many stops along the first transcontinental air/rail service between Los Angeles and New York that was started byTranscontinental Air Transport (TAT) in 1929. TAT would later becomeTrans World Airlines (TWA) and continued to serve IND until their merger intoAmerican Airlines in 2001.
Since 1962, the airport has been owned and operated by theIndianapolis Airport Authority (IAA). The IAA has an eight-member board with members appointed by the mayor of Indianapolis and other officials from Marion,Hendricks, andHamilton counties in central Indiana. In 1976, the board renamed the airport Indianapolis International Airport.[10]
From 1957 to 2008, the passenger terminal was on the east side of the airfield off High School Road. This now-demolished facility was renovated and expanded many times, notably in 1968 (Concourses A and B), 1972 (Concourse D), and 1987 (Concourse C and the attached parking garage). This complex, along with the International Arrivals Terminal (opened in 1976) on the north side of the airfield (off Pierson Drive), was replaced by the Col. H. Weir Cook Terminal on November 12, 2008.[11]
The April 1957 Official Airline Guide (OAG) shows 82 weekday departures: 24 Eastern, 22 TWA, 15 Delta, 11 American, 9 Lake Central and 1 Ozark. Eastern had a nonstop to Atlanta and one to Birmingham and TWA had two to New York-LaGuardia; no other nonstops reached beyond Chicago, St. Louis, Memphis, Louisville and Pittsburgh. The first jets were TWAConvair 880s in 1961. Westward nonstops did not reach beyond St. Louis until 1967 when TWA started a JFK-IND-LAX flight with aBoeing 707. In the mid-1970s, TWA ran a widebodyLockheed L-1011 on the nonstop flight to Los Angeles.[12]
During the late 1980s and early 1990s, USAir (laterUS Airways) had a secondary hub in Indianapolis with non-stop jets to the West Coast, East Coast, and Florida and turboprop flights to cities around theMidwest. USAir peaked at 146 daily departures (including its prop affiliates), with 49% of all seats. USAir ended the hub in the late 1990s.[citation needed]
FedEx Express began its hub at the airport in 1988, with an expansion of the hub occurring ten years later. The hub employs around 4,000 people and has a sort capacity of nearly 100,000 packages per hour, making Indianapolis the largest FedEx hub in the world outside of the company'sSuperHub in Memphis.[13]
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Indianapolis was a hub for then locally basedATA Airlines and its regional affiliate,Chicago Express/ATA Connection. After that airline enteredChapter 11 bankruptcy protection in late 2004, operations at IND were cut, then eliminated in 2006.[14] ATA's demise gaveNorthwest Airlines an opportunity to expand operations, making Indianapolis a focus city with mainline flights to the West Coast, East Coast, and the South.[15] Northwest was later acquired byDelta Air Lines in 2008, and a decade later, Delta began service from Indianapolis toParis in May 2018. This flight was the first ever non-stop transatlantic passenger flight out of Indianapolis.[16] The flight, DL500, was suspended in March 2020 due to theCOVID-19 pandemic.[17]
In 1990,Air Canada began nonstop service from Indianapolis toToronto Pearson International Airport, marking the first regularly scheduled international flight out of IND.[18]Air Canada Jazz, which operated the flight from 2001, would be retired by Air Canada in 2012, and service to IND would continue under the newAir Canada Express brand.
In 1994,BAA USA was awarded a 10-year contract to manage the Indianapolis International Airport. The contract was extended three years but was later cut a year short at the request of the BAA. Private management ended on December 31, 2007, and control reverted to IAA.[19][20] Also in 1994, United Airlines finished building its Indianapolis Maintenance Center[21] at a cost of US$600 million.[22] United later moved their maintenance operations to its sole maintenance hub located atSan Francisco International Airport. Around 2006, runway 14/32 was shortened from 7,604 feet (2,318 m) to its present length because the south end was not visible from the new control tower.[23]
Interior of the airport's Col. H. Weir Cook Terminal in 2015
A new 1.2-million-square-foot (110,000 m2) midfield passenger terminal, which cost $1.1 billion, opened in 2008 between the airport's two parallel runways, southwest of the previous terminal and the crosswind runway. A new FAA Air Traffic Control Tower (ATCT) and Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON) building, the second tallest in the United States, opened in April 2006, the first component of the long-planned midfield complex. The Weir Cook Terminal itself opened for arriving flights on the evening of November 11, 2008, and for departures the following morning.HOK was its master designer, with AeroDesign Group (a joint venture of CSO Architects, SchenkelShultz Architecture, and ARCHonsortium) serving as the architect of record. Aviation Capital Management (Indianapolis), a subsidiary ofBSA LifeStructures, was the airport's program manager. Hunt/Smoot Midfield Builders, a joint venture ofHunt Construction Group and Smoot Construction was the construction manager.[24]Thornton Tomasetti was the terminal's structural engineer along with Fink, Roberts and Petrie.[25] Syska Hennessy was the mechanical, electrical, & plumbing engineer.[25] In 2021, a six-person panel of Indianapolis members of theAmerican Institute of Architects (AIA) identified the Col. H. Weir Cook Terminal among the ten most "architecturally significant" buildings completed in the city sinceWorld War II.[26]
A 183-acre (74 ha), 22 MWsolar farm consisting of 87,478 solar panels is located at the approach end of runway 5R. As of late 2025, it is the largest airport solar farm in the world.[27][28] The airport plans to further expand solar capacity by covering the parking lots with solar canopies as part of its goal to be energy self-sufficient and carbon-neutral.[29]
In August 2017, Allegiant Air announced it would open a $40 million aircraft base at the airport that would begin operations in February of the following year. The facility was to create 66 high-paying jobs by the end of year and house two Airbus aircraft.[30][31]
On August 16, 2019, theIndianapolis Airport Authority announced a $76 million plan to expand the terminal parking garage. The airport's existing parking garage, which opened with the new terminal in 2008, had an existing 5,900 public parking spaces and 1,200 rental car spaces. The five-story expansion began construction in fall 2022 with F.A. Wilhelm as the general contractor to build the 500,000 square feet (46,000 m2) expansion, giving the airport an extra 500 public parking spots and 1,000 rental car spaces including the installation of a solar canopy that spanning the entire addition. The expansion opened in early 2024.[32][33]
International service to IND has increased in recent years. On October 21, 2024,Aer Lingus announced nonstop flights toDublin, Ireland beginning May 2025, marking the first transatlantic flight out of Indianapolis since 2020.[34] In March 2025, American Airlines announced service toPunta Cana in theDominican Republic.[35] In April, Delta Air Lines announced service toCancún.[36] In August of the same year, Southwest Airlines announced service toSan José del Cabo in Mexico,[37] then in early October Southwest Airlines also announced non-stop service toSan Juan inPuerto Rico.[38]
TheIndianapolis Airport Authority voted on February 21, 2025, to build a new hotel at the airport. The 253-roomMarriott Westin-branded hotel will connect to the west side of the terminal parking garage, allowing direct access to the airport terminal. The hotel will feature a full-service restaurant, a seventh-floor lounge area with an airfield view open to the public, a fitness center, approximately 10,000 square feet (930 m2) of meeting space, and dedicated parking with valet. Groundbreaking for the Westin Indianapolis Airport hotel began in June 2025,[39] with anticipated completion of the almost $206 million project in December 2027.[40][41][42]
Exterior of the Col. H. Weir Cook Terminal in 2019
Indianapolis International Airport has a single terminal with two concourses and a total of 39 gates.[43] The current terminal opened in 2008 and is named in honor of Col. Harvey Weir Cook. It was one of the first designed and built in the U.S. following theSeptember 11 attacks.[44] International arrivals are processed in Concourse A.[43]
The airport has three runways: twoparallel and onecrosswind. The crosswind runway, 14/32, is the shortest of the three at 7,278 feet (2,218 m), and the only original runway remaining. Historical aerial imagery shows that the original runway 5/23 became 5L/23R when 5R/23L was first constructed in the late 1980s and opened in 1989.[46] When the current 5L/23R was built in the mid-1990s, the original 5L/23R runway was decommissioned. Portions of it are still visible near the site of the old terminal, including a segment where a former FedEx Boeing 727 still remains for fire training. The new terminal now occupies what used to be the southwestern end of the original 5/23 runway. The most recently refurbished runway is 5R/23L, completed in 2024 as part of a large expansion program. Indianapolis International Airport received a $26.6 million grant from theFederal Aviation Administration (FAA) on August 2, 2024. The grant was one of the largest among airports selected to receive the latest round of funding. The funding was applied to the reconstruction of IND's Runway 5R-23L and Taxiway D to improve safety. The project, which included addingLED runway and taxiway lighting was completed in late 2024. TheIndianapolis Airport Authority (IAA) spent approximately $38.6 million with 34 diverse businesses for phase one and two. The construction project has created more than 3,200 jobs, across all three phases of the reconstruction.[47][48][49] The north parallel runway (5L/23R) was refurbished in 2021 which allowed the south parallel runway reconstruction to proceed with minimal operational impact to the airfield.[50]
Ten rental car operations (Alamo,Avis,Budget,Dollar,Enterprise,Hertz,National,Payless,Sixt, andThrifty) and the Ground Transportation Center (where information about limousine, shuttle bus, hotel courtesy vehicles and other transportation services such asIndyGo bus service can be obtained) are located on the first floor of the attached parking garage. All pick-ups and drop-offs of rental vehicles also occur here, eliminating the need for shuttling customers to and from individual companies' remote processing facilities. The 3.2-million-square-foot (300,000 m2) five-floor parking garage has 6,400 public parking spaces and 2,200 rental car spaces.[32] It features a light-filled center atrium complete with a piece of suspended artwork and contains moving sidewalks to speed pedestrians into and out of the terminal building itself.[53][54]
The Blue Line, a bus rapid transit route also operated by IndyGo, will have its western terminus at the airport. Groundbreaking for the new line began in February 2025 and the route is expected to be completed by 2028.[55]
International destinations from IND (includes Alaska, Hawaii, and U.S. territories).Red dots represent year-round destinations;green dots represent seasonal destinations;blue dots represent future destinations.
FAA control towerIndianapolis International Airport boarding areaWalkway from the terminal to the parking garage with motion-activated lightsView from the FAA control tower of the parking garage and terminal building
On May 12, 1996, aBoeing 727-290 (N775AT), operated as American Trans Air flight 406, carrying 104 passengers fromChicago–Midway experienced adecompression at 33,000 feet. The flight, which was bound forSt. Petersburg/Clearwater made an emergency landing at the Indianapolis International Airport. All 112 passengers and crew survived with 11 minor injuries.[114]
^"List of NPIAS Airports"(PDF).FAA.gov. Federal Aviation Administration. November 11, 2024.Archived(PDF) from the original on June 21, 2025. RetrievedJuly 6, 2025.
^"Dec 2021 Airline Activity Report"(PDF).Indianapolis International Airport (Press release). Indianapolis Airport Authority.Archived(PDF) from the original on April 4, 2023. RetrievedFebruary 9, 2022.
^"Archived copy"(PDF). Archived fromthe original(PDF) on April 4, 2015. RetrievedApril 2, 2015.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - for 1996 to 2004
^"Airline Activity Reports". Indianapolis International Airport.Archived from the original on December 1, 2017. RetrievedNovember 20, 2017. - individual reports for 2005 and following years
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