Portland International Airport

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Portland International Airport
Portland International Airport from the air.
PDX airport diagram.
IATA: PDX – ICAO: KPDX – FAA: PDX
Summary
Airport type		Public
Owner		Port of Portland
Serves		Portland metropolitan area
Hub for		Alaska Airlines Horizon Air
Elevation AMSL		30 ft / 9 m
Coordinates		45°35′19″N 122°35′51″W / 45.58861°N 122.5975°W / 45.58861; -122.5975
Website		www.flypdx.com
Runways
Direction	Length		Surface
	ft	m
3/21	7,001	2,134	Asphalt
10L/28R	8,000	2,438	Asphalt
10R/28L	11,000	3,353	Asphalt
Statistics (2008)
Passengers			14,654,222
Aircraft operations			252,572
Based aircraft			92 (2007)
Source: Federal Aviation Administration[1]

Aerial view from the southwest.

View from Rocky Butte.

Portland International Airport (IATA: PDX, ICAO: KPDX, FAA LID: PDX) is the largest airport in the U.S. state of Oregon, accounting for 90% of passenger travel and more than 95% of air cargo of the state.^[2] It is located on the south side of the Columbia River in Multnomah County, six miles by air and twelve miles by highway northeast of downtown Portland. Portland International Airport is often referred to by its IATA airport code, PDX.

PDX has direct connections to major airport hubs throughout the United States, plus non-stop international flights to Canada, Japan, Mexico, and the Netherlands. It is also a hub for flights to smaller cities in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, California and Nevada. The airport is a major hub for Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air, and serves as a maintenance facility for Horizon Air. The air route between PDX and Seattle-Tacoma International Airport is currently the 19th busiest air route in the world, in terms of flights per week. General aviation services are provided at PDX by Flightcraft. The Oregon Air National Guard has a base located on the south side of the property. Local transportation includes light rail on the MAX Red Line and Interstate 205.

[edit] Terminal

The main terminal consists of one building roughly "H"-shaped that is divided into five concourses. Concourses A, B, and C are on the south side of the terminal and concourses D and E are on the north; the two sides are connected beyond security checkpoints by an elevated walkway opened in August 2005.^[3]

PDX has a shopping mall behind its ticketing counters, with all shops and restaurants open every day. Because the state is one of the few in the nation with no sales tax, all stores offer tax-free shopping. The Port of Portland also requires all airport shops and restaurants to practice "Fair Retail Pricing" (which means businesses are not allowed to charge more than at their off-airport locations).^[4]

Food services located in the terminal include Beaverton Bakery, Booya Juice, Caper's Café, Coffee People, Cool Temptations, Good Dog/Bad Dog, Gustav's Pub & Grill, Jamba Juice, Jumping Jelly Beans, Laurelwood Brewing Co, Panda Express, Pizza Schmizza, Pizzicato, Quiznos Subs, Riverfront Café, Rose City Café, Rose City Wine Bar, Sandoval's Fresh Mexican Grill, Stanford's Restaurant and Bar, Starbucks Coffee, Wendy's, and Widmer Pub.^[4]

Retail stores include Aria, Brookstone, Creative Kidstuff, Hudson News, InMotion Pictures, Made in Oregon, Nike, Columbia Sportswear, Powell's Books, Relax Station, Spirit of the Red Horse, Oregon Pendleton Shop, The Paper Station, The Real Mother Goose, and Your Northwest Travel Mart.^[4]

PDX offers other services including free Wi-Fi wireless Internet access, a children's play area and postal services. Smoking is prohibited everywhere on the grounds except in designated smoking areas outside the terminal entrances.

[edit] Ratings

In 2006, 2007, and 2008 PDX was identified as the top airport for business travelers in the United States by Condé Nast Traveler magazine.^[5] The Condé Nast ranking was based upon criteria including location and access, ease of connections, food, shops, amenities, comfort and design, and perceived safety and security; PDX received the top overall score, and the magazine noted the airport’s environmentally friendly initiatives, including the airport's use of solar panels for power, its connection to the MAX Light Rail, and its recycling of its restaurants' used oil and grease.

In 2008, a J.D. Power study contradicted the magazine's assessment, ranking the airport 19th in overall airport satisfaction out of 21 U.S. airports with from 10 to 30 million passengers per year. It scored PDX "average" in the categories of check-in/baggage check, security check and baggage claims, and at the bottom of several categories, including overall airport satisfaction, airport accessibility, terminal facilities and food and retail services.^[6]

[edit] Statistics

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• 1.2 million passengers per month (New Record,14,654,222 passengers in 2007)^[7]
• 23,000 short tons of air freight per month^[7]
• 19,000 commercial flight operations per month in 2007
• Non-stop commercial air service to 16 of the 17 most populated US Metropolitan Statistical Areas

[edit] Airlines and destinations

For the latest information, visit the airport's official website.^[8]

[edit] Concourse A

[edit] Concourse B

[edit] Concourse C

[edit] Concourse D (International)

Concourse D handles all international arrivals (except precleared flights from Canada) and the following departures:

The international section of Concourse D was renamed to honor Oregon's Governor Victor G. Atiyeh also known as Trader Vic, and is called the Governor Victor G. Atiyeh International Concourse.^[9]

[edit] Concourse E

[edit] Business Aviation Terminal

[edit] Cargo operations

[edit] City airport history

Portland's main airport has been in two other incarnations. The first was on Swan Island, now used by the Port of Portland for industrial parks,^[10] and the second was the 1940s–1950s configuration on the present site known as the "super airport".^[11] The third and present configuration was first known as "The International",^{[citation needed]} but is now known as PDX in all common and most official usage.

[edit] Swan Island Airport

In 1925 aviation proponents proposed an airport for Portland on Swan Island, northwest of downtown Portland on the Willamette River. The Port of Portland purchased 256 acres (104 ha) and construction began in 1926. Although the airport wasn't completed until 1930, Charles Lindbergh flew in and dedicated the new airfield in 1927.

By 1935 it was becoming apparent to the Port of Portland that the Swan Island Airport was becoming obsolete. The small airfield couldn't easily be expanded, nor could it accommodate the larger aircraft and passenger loads expected to become common to Portland. Plans immediately were conceived to relocate the outdated airfield to a larger site.

Swan Island Airport was officially named Portland Airport until the opening of the new airport.

[edit] Portland-Columbia "Super Airport"

The present PDX site was purchased by the Portland City Council in 1936. At the time it was 700 acres (280 ha) bordered by the Columbia River in the north and the Columbia Slough in the south. The city council issued US$300,000 and asked the Port of Portland to sponsor a US$1.3 million Works Progress Administration (WPA) grant to develop the site into a "super airport". The project provided badly needed Great Depression-era jobs and was completed in 1940.^[12] The airport was designated Portland-Columbia Airport to distinguish it from then-operating Swan Island Airport.

During World War II the airfield was used by the United States Army Air Force.

The "super airport" featured a terminal on the north side of the property, off Marine Drive, and five runways (NE-SW, NW-SE, and an E-W runway forming an asterisk). This configuration was adequate until a new terminal and a longer, 8,800-foot (2,700 m) east-west runway were constructed in 1952.

In 1948 the entire airport grounds were flooded during the Vanport Flood due to its proximity to the Columbia River and very low elevation, forcing scheduled airline services to reroute to nearby Troutdale Airport. The grounds remained covered entirely in water for several months.

[edit] International status and expansion

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Atrium at the end of Concourse D.

Departure area of the airport.

A new terminal opened in 1958, which for the most part serves as the present facility. The new terminal is located to the east of the original runways, and north of the then-new 8,800 ft. runway. Construction of a second east-west runway to the north made this a midfield terminal. At this point, all but the NE-SW (3/21) runway in the original "X" were abandoned and turned into taxiways. 3/21 was extended for use as a cross-wind runway. "International" was added to the airport's official designation after the 1950s-era improvements.

Plans made in 1968 to add a third runway by means of filling in parts of the Columbia River were met with vocal public opposition and scrapped. In 1974 the south runway was extended to 11,000 feet (3,400 m) to service the newest jumbo jets.

By the 1980s, the terminal building began an extensive renovation in order to update PDX to meet future needs. Concourse E was first to be reconstructed, and featured PDX's first moving sidewalks. The Oregon Marketplace, a small shopping mall, was added in the former waiting areas behind the ticket counters.

The early 1990s saw a food court and extension added to Concourse C, and the opening of the new Concourse D. This marked the first concessions inside secured areas, allowing passengers to purchase items without having to be re-screened.

An expanded parking garage, new control tower, and canopy over the curbside were finished in the late 1990s. Although hailed by architectural critics, the canopy blocked views of Mount Hood from the curbside. During construction, the garage addition collapsed, killing a worker.

The present H-shape of the PDX terminal was completed on September 10, 2001 when the new A, B and C concourses, as well as the light rail line, were finished. Probably the most stunning portion of PDX's interior, the new concourses reflect a Northwest theme, focusing heavily on the nearby Columbia river. A huge celebration was to be held the following weekend, but the events of September 11, 2001 interceded. The new concourses, designed to be public spaces, were closed to non-passengers.

In the fall of 2005,^[when?] the concourse connector was finished. This is a long hallway on the secure side of the airport that connects the A, B, and C concourses to the D and E concourses on the other side of the airport. If there is a long line at the checkpoint at one end of the airport, passengers may use the other checkpoint and walk through the connector to their desired concourse.^[13]

[edit] International service

Delta Air Lines used Portland as a gateway in the 1990s for extensive service to Asia with its MD-11 aircraft, until the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis. International travel decreased even further due to complaints about treatment at the immigration facility in Portland, leading it to be nicknamed "DePortland".^[14][15] The combination of these factors caused Delta to discontinue what was then the last direct flight from PDX to Tokyo's Narita International Airport (NRT) and Nagoya in March 2001.^[16] This change brought local media scrutiny, which, when combined with the resulting Congressional pressure, caused those in charge^[who?] of the immigration facility to address the problems.^{[citation needed]} Delta resumed a Narita nonstop service in 2009 as part of its acquisition of Northwest; curiously, the Northwest-operated flight is flown on a cross-utilized Delta 767-300ER (replacing a larger A330 previously on the route), and is in turn codeshared with Delta.

Meanwhile, local travel businesses had begun recruiting other carriers. Lufthansa started direct flights to Frankfurt, Germany, on March 31, 2003.^[17] Northwest Airlines introduced non stop flights to Tokyo (Narita Airport) on June 10, 2004.^[18]Mexicana Airlines also introduced service to Guadalajara, Mexico and Mexico City. After 5 years of service between PDX and Mexico, the service was cancelled by Mexicana Airlines on May 2, 2008, due to high fuel prices and change in demand. This change left Alaska Airlines as the only airline with nonstop services to Mexico.^[19] Northwest Airlines announced on October 9, 2007 the expansion of international service with new A330 nonstop service to Amsterdam that began on March 29, 2008. Though at one time reported to continue to Mumbai by Delta beginning June, 2009, the Amsterdam service was instead reduced that year to a Northwest-operated Delta-flown 767-300.^[20][21]

The airport's international service was also featured on The Amazing Race 13 as the arrival airport after all three teams that were in the race arrived on Lufthansa from Frankfurt. Lufthansa ended its service to Frankfurt on September 12, 2009.^[22]

[edit] Future plans

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Although some plans have been studied to either replace or relieve PDX traffic, planners continue to prefer expansion.^{[citation needed]} Salem, Oregon's McNary Field (SLE) and the Port of Portland's Hillsboro Airport (HIO) in Washington County have been suggested as future relievers. Between 1993 and 2007, Salem's airport was without scheduled airline flights. With resumption of commercial flights on June 7, 2007, the airport has planned terminal improvements using a preconstructed modular building.^[23] However, these flights have since been canceled.^[24]

At PDX, base material has begun^[when?] to soften around eighteen supporting joints beneath the west third of the south runway due to aircraft landings. The port considered shutting the runway down at night for repairs and opening the runway during the day as would normally be done. However, this would require the rehabilitation be spread over a four year period. Due to the weakened joints, the runway must be repaired before the end of 2011, which could not be done using the four year strategy. Since more aircraft require the full length runway than could be accommodated by the next longest runway, the port has proposed expanding the north runway. If approved, the north runway is tentatively scheduled to be extended between May and November 2010. This will allow for the south runway to be closed the following year for resurfacing. By closing and working on the entire runway at once, the port estimates the rehabilitation of the south runway will cost 40 percent less than working at night only.^[25]

[edit] Gallery

Domestic destinations (lower 48 US States) served from Portland International Airport (as of November 2008)	International, Alaska, and Hawaii destinations served from Portland International Airport (as of March 2008)	America West Airbus A319 at PDX	Southwest Airlines' Arizona One at PDX
C-5 Galaxy from the 105th Airlift Wing, taxiing for takeoff	Alaska Airlines ".com" and "Disney" aircraft at PDX

[edit] See also

• Portland-Mulino Airport
• Pearson Field
• Oregon World War II Army Airfields
• Western Air Defense Force (Air Defense Command)

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Airport Wayfinder: Interactive video guide and detailed informations about Portland International Airport.

United States Air Force portal

Military of the United States portal

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Portland International Airport

• FAA Airport Diagram(PDF), effective 22 Oct 2009
• FAA Terminal Procedures for PDX, effective 22 Oct 2009
• Resources for this airport:
  • AirNav airport information for KPDX
  • ASN accident history for PDX
  • FlightAware airport information and live flight tracker
  • NOAA/NWS latest weather observations
  • SkyVector aeronautical chart for KPDX
  • FAA current PDX delay information

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