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> Notice how some airports (IAD, IAH) specifically have "International Airport" in their codes.

Since this is HN, we'll get ultra-pedantic...

IAH is technically "Intercontinental Airport of Houston", not "international" for some reason (full name is "George Bush Intercontinental Airport").

LUV is an airport in Indonesia, Dallas Love Field is DAL. DAL was forced to be a domestic-only airport from the Wright amendment as DFW was way the hell out in the middle of nowhere in '79, nobody would have bothered going out there if they weren't forced to by federal law. American Airlines wanted an airport, and the federal government gave it to them.

And sure, IAH is the bigger international airport in Houston, but it also carries an absolutely massive amount of domestic travel as well. My comment was about having an airport be almost exclusively international travel with few domestic connections.

> DAL was forced to be a domestic-only airport from the Wright amendment as DFW was way the hell out in the middle of nowhere in '79, nobody would have bothered going out there if they weren't forced to by federal law. American Airlines wanted an airport, and the federal government gave it to them.

That's more than a little revisionist: following the CAB's demand for a joint international-class airport (Dallas refused to use GSW, and DAL had gotten way too small for the traffic, and its runways too small for international jets), Dallas, Fort Worth, and the existing airlines signed an agreement to phase out cross-state operations at local airports and move them all to DFW. When DFW opened, all the airlines moved their non-local operations there per the agreement.

Except Southwest, who'd been created after the agreement, decided they were not bound by it, and enjoyed a now empty and easily accessible airport. And since Southwest's operations were initially intrastate, they didn't fall under CAB jurisdiction, which was the reason for DFW existing in the first place.

The Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 then meant Southwest was able to expand to interstate traffic without being restrictible by a dying CAB.

Wright was passed to protect an airport which CAB had all but forced on the area (though to be fair CAB was paying for airports, which was why they wanted them regrouped). Plus bankrupting DFW would have completely broken DAL and aviation to the region.

Thanks for informing me to the history of the CAB decisions. In the end though, it still seems like American and Braniff weren't happy people were sticking it out with Love instead of their larger and fancier airport, and deregulation gave people the market to choose which airport they really wanted to go to until the Wright amendment forced people again. Even knowing this additional history of it being a joint decision pre-deregulation, I'd still argue my earlier viewpoint still has a good bit of truth to it. American Airlines (and a few others) wanted people to use the new airport instead of the airport the people wanted and got Congress to force people to go to DFW. GSW failed because people didn't really want it. DFW would have failed post deregulation as well if the federal government didn't force it to succeed.

FWIW I do agree this was ultimately a good thing in the end though. It would not have been good for DFW airport to fail, and the region definitely did need a larger airport.

It seems like we do agree with this line though:

> nobody would have bothered going out there if they weren't forced to by federal law.

> It was a pretty common urban planning concept for a large city to have one airport devoted mostly or entirely to domestic flights, and one mostly or entirely for international flights.

Which, like urban highways, really doesn't make a sense in most cases if one spends a few minutes thinking about it. And especially doesn't make sense for an airport whose main traffic is connecting international and domestic flights.

Urban planners in many places in the 1950-1990 time were... special. Blindly copying bullshit that didn't make sense originally and definitely didn't make sense in their city.

I too thought 'international' in the name meant something. Until I worked with a guy who was into gliders. They named the large empty grass field that you had to drive for an hour to get to an 'international' airport. It was basically just enough to get a very small airplane aloft with a glider attached. They thought it was funny they pulled it off.

"International" in the name of an airport signifies that it is certified to receive international flights.

I'm pointing out the use of "International" in airport codes, not names.

you would think that.... This 'runway'/grass field was named an international. They thought it was funny to do. The naming group did not really seem to care all they cared about was the letter code was unique.

International means customs is there when you land your plane. Tiny airports near borders tend to be international while larger ones far away are not as nobody flies the from elsewhere anyway. some airports you need to make an appointment or customes will not be there.

It is a convention. And apparently not mandated anywhere. This grass field was in the middle of north carolina. It had a small building they kept their gliders in and another small shed for parts.