It is a place where lives intertwine, a place where business is on the minds of many, a place where transnational connections are made possible, and most of all, a place where traveling by air is more than boarding a plane and taking flight. The smaller of Houston’s two primary airports, William P. Hobby Airport is the air service provider that has been connecting the energy capital of the world to the rest of the globe for more than eighty years now. This year, Houston’s second-largest airport will commemorate its 80th anniversary – and what it has to celebrate is more than just eight decades of flying aircraft. Folks that first knew the airport as Houston Municipal Airport, in 1937, still remember the days in which all flights in and out of the city were routed through that single terminal airport. Back then commercial aircraft were fewer and farther between and passengers enumerated in the hundreds rather than the millions. Yet prior to becoming Houston’s first public airport, Hobby had already been providing air service to the local region for 10 years as a private airfield. Today, the airport is among the most favored in the United States. A recent J.D. Powers and Associates passenger survey found that Hobby is the number one airport in the country for customer satisfaction among smaller airports – those serving less than 10 million travelers annually. As the Houston Airport System prepares to kickoff a yearlong celebration in honor of their second-largest airport, travelers are already enjoying the benefits of having such a dynamic airport within their reach. In 2006, JetBlue Airways and ATA Airlines introduced new air service to William P. Hobby Airport, amplifying the already expansive availability of low-cost carrier service from Houston. Southwest Airlines, the primary airline providing service to the airport, is among the top low-cost carriers in the nation. “People here know Hobby. They feel like they’ve grown up with the airport in their backyard and so they take real pride in the progress that we are making,” said Mary Case, the airport’s manager.

© Houston Airport System Next year, Hobby will celebrate its 80th anniversary as a Houston staple.

“That makes our job so much easier. We know the community is behind us – all we have to do is continue keeping them satisfied.”

Over the past eight decades, ensuring that satisfaction has resulted in the construction of four aircraft runways – two general aviations runways, one ILS Category I runway and one ILS Category III runway. Last year, Hobby and its now eight scheduled passenger airlines served more than 8.2 million passengers.

That does not include the hundreds of passengers passing through the airport’s general aviation tenant’s facilities each day.

“Roughly 50 percent of our aircraft operations are fixed based operator operations,” Case noted. “Houston, as one of the leading international cities in the world, is a very strong origin and destination market. The general aviation industry recognizes this and that’s why we are seeing such substantial investments at Hobby.”

Those investments include massive construction and rehabilitation projects undertaken by each of the airport’s five fixed based operators. Enterprise Jet Center, for example, has announced plans to invest more than $11 million on improvements to its Hobby facility.

Wilson Air Center, the newest fixed based operator at the airport, has already spent over $2 million renovating the old Fletcher Aviation complex it took over last year.

For its part, the Houston Airport System is looking to satisfy the demands of passengers for more air service from Hobby by finalizing the construction of the new Central Concourse. This new concourse will result in the demolishment of Concourses B and C at the airport, which in turn will deliver a single 20-gate central concourse complex.

Improved passenger amenities and services will be made possible by this new concourse. The existing terminal will also be expanded and renovated to provide passengers with improved access between the curbside and each gate.

So as travelers continue passing through this state-of-the-art airport in higher numbers each year, the consensus for airport officials is one – Hobby will keep on growing with the flow of traffic. By 2025, more than 80 million passengers are expected to pass through Houston’s two primary airports annually.

“Connecting people is what we do,” Case said. “Whether they are arriving here at Hobby, or at Intercontinental, passengers know that the pace of life in Houston is more relaxed and pleasant. We’re not rushing travelers through the airport; we are making sure they have everything they need and that they are comfortable.”

Copyright © 2006 - Houston Airport System