Wilmington International Airport is a public airport located just north of Wilmington, North Carolina, in unincorporated Wrightsboro, New Hanover County. ILM covers 1,800 acres (728 ha).
During the calendar year of 2022, ILM had a record high number of passengers with 545,899 enplanements and 540,346 deplanements, totaling 1,086,245 passengers. The airport has two runways and a single terminal which has eight gates. The airport is also home to a fixed-base operation (FBO). There is a 24-hour U.S. Customs and Border Protection ramp for international flights wishing to stop at the airport. The separate terminal was built to serve the international flights that land each year (private or charter). The airport's location on the coast, halfway between NYC and Miami, makes it a desirable and less busy entry point to the United States, with the recent addition of a 24-hour US Customs ramp, which was completed in 2008.
Wilmington International Airport is owned by New Hanover County, North Carolina which leases the airport to the Wilmington Airport Authority. The current airport director is Jeffrey Bourk, A.A.E.. The New Hanover County Airport Authority has seven board members, appointed by the New Hanover County Commissioners.
History
The airport was named Bluethenthal Field on Memorial Day, May 30, 1928, in honor of Arthur Bluethenthal, a former All-American football player and decorated World War I pilot who was the first North Carolinian to die in the war.
During World War II, the airfield was used by the United States Army Air Forces Third Air Force for anti submarine patrols and training using P-47 Thunderbolt aircraft. The Army expanded the airfield with three new 7,000-foot runways, and after the war, deeded the site back to New Hanover County at no cost.
In the 1950s it became known as the New Hanover County Airport. In 1988 the airport added "International" to become known as New Hanover County International Airport. On December 17, 1997, the New Hanover County Airport Authority changed the name to Wilmington International Airport.
Piedmont Airlines began commercial flights to Wilmington in February 1948, and used Wilmington as one of its initial crew bases. Its first route was between Wilmington and Cincinnati, Ohio, with stops in Pinehurst, Charlotte, Asheville, the Tri-Cities and Lexington. Piedmont was the airport's only scheduled carrier as of 1975, with flights to Atlanta, Fayetteville, Jacksonville, Kinston, Myrtle Beach, New Bern, Norfolk and Washington-National, using YS-11, FH-227 and Boeing 737 aircraft. Piedmont was acquired by USAir in 1989; USAir was renamed US Airways in 1997, and merged with American Airlines in 2013.
In addition to flights to its main regional hub at Charlotte Douglas International Airport, US Airways introduced three daily flights between Wilmington and LaGuardia Airport in New York City during the 2000s following lobbying from the Wilmington community. US Airways also introduced nonstop service to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in March 2011. American Eagle began service between Wilmington and Chicago O'Hare International Airport in July 2011 after the airport authority offered two years of waived fees and marketing cost sharing. This route had been actively sought by the local business community for its connections to the West Coast and to Asia. The route was discontinued on April 2, 2012, but reinstated in early 2018.
ILM was one of four airports along the East Coast which served as an emergency abort landing site for the Space Shuttle. Improvements in the orbiter's braking system reduced the previous runway requirement to enabling ILM's 8,016-foot (2,443 m) runway to serve the role. ILM has also been used for touch-and-go training flights by United States Air Force VIP aircraft, including the Boeing VC-25 (Air Force One), C-32 and C-40.