Cleveland Hopkins International Airport

Cleveland Hopkins International Airport (CLE) is the principal commercial airport of Northeast Ohio and the busiest airport in the state by international traffic, serving the Cleveland–Akron combined statistical area of roughly 3.6 million people. Opened in 1925 as the world's first municipally owned airport, CLE claims several aviation firsts including the first air-traffic control tower (1930) and the first direct rail link between a U.S. airport and a city's downtown (1968). Despite losing United Airlines' hub status in 2014, the airport has since rebuilt passenger traffic above 10 million a year and continues to operate as a focus city for Frontier and a major transit point for the Great Lakes region. CLE sits in Brook Park, about 14 km (9 mi) southwest of downtown Cleveland, at an elevation of 791 ft (241 m). Three intersecting runways — 06R/24L at 9,953 ft (3,034 m), 06L/24R at 9,000 ft (2,743 m) and 10/28 at 6,018 ft (1,835 m) — provide near-all-weather capability in what can be an extremely demanding winter operating environment. The single terminal houses concourses A, B and C with 60 gates; a multi-billion-dollar terminal-modernization program announced by the Cleveland Airport System is progressing toward a new landside building scheduled for the early 2030s. Twenty-five airlines link CLE to 55 nonstop destinations, including seasonal transatlantic service to European gateways, Caribbean and Mexican resort flying, and dense North American trunk networks flown by United, American, Delta, Southwest, JetBlue, Frontier and Spirit. United retains the largest share of operations, reflecting CLE's continued role as a key spoke on its Midwestern network. The airport's strength in international cargo and its proximity to major industrial and healthcare clusters including the Cleveland Clinic keep it a strategically significant Great Lakes gateway (2025).