The first runway opened in 1956 at about the same time the city donated the southern Grandview Airport to the United States Air Force to become Richards-Gebaur Air Force Base. Cookingham Drive is now the main access road to the airport. The site just north of the then-unincorporated hamlet of Hampton, Missouri, was picked in May 1953 (with an anticipated cost of $23 million) under the guidance of City Manager L.P. TWA moved its Fairfax plant to the new airport and also its overseas overhaul operations at New Castle County Airport in Delaware. Dillingham, president of the Kansas City Stockyards, which had also been destroyed in the flood.

Kansas City already owned Grandview Airport south of the city with ample room for expansion, but the city chose to build a new airport north of the city away from the Missouri River following lobbying by Platte County native Jay B. Kansas City was planning to build an airport with room for 10,000-foot (3,000 m) runways and knew the downtown airport would not be large enough. TWA's main overhaul base was a former B-25 bomber factory at Fairfax, although TWA commercial flights flew out of the main downtown airport. Kansas City Industrial Airport was built after the Great Flood of 1951 destroyed the facilities of both of Kansas City's hometown airlines Mid-Continent Airlines and TWA at Fairfax Airport across the Missouri River from the city's main Kansas City Municipal Airport (which was not as badly damaged). Nonstop service was offered to 47 airports, including Cancun and Toronto. As of October, 2022, there were 303 daily arrivals and departures. Since the shut-down of the 2020 pandemic, the number of peak-day scheduled aircraft departures has been steadily recovering. The airport has always been a civilian airport and has never had an Air National Guard unit assigned to it. The airport covers 10,680 acres (4,320 ha) and has three runways. It serves the Kansas City Metropolitan Area and is the primary passenger airport for much of western Missouri and eastern Kansas. MCI replaced Kansas City Municipal Airport (MKC) in 1972, with all scheduled passenger airline flights being moved from MKC to MCI. The airport was opened in 1972 and a new complex in the airport was completed in 2023, replacing the old one. Kansas City International Airport ( IATA: MCI, ICAO: KMCI, FAA LID: MCI) (originally Mid-Continent International Airport) is a public airport in Kansas City, Missouri, located 15 miles (24 km) northwest of Downtown Kansas City in Platte County, Missouri. Airport from the east Kansas City Overhaul Base in 2007

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