General Mitchell International Airport

General Mitchell International Airport is the primary commercial airport for Milwaukee and the largest airport in Wisconsin by passenger volume, positioned 8 mi (13 km) south of downtown Milwaukee at 723 ft (220 m) elevation just inland from the Lake Michigan shoreline. With 168 routes across 106 destinations through 29 airlines, MKE operates at the scale of a mid-sized U.S. regional hub and draws a catchment that extends well beyond Milwaukee metro to include southern Wisconsin, northern Illinois (including fare-sensitive Chicago-area travelers who drive 90 minutes for lower parking and fare rates), and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. No carrier dominates MKE at hub scale. Southwest, Delta, American, United, Frontier, and Spirit all operate substantial daily service; Sun Country, Avelo, Allegiant, and Breeze Airways run focus-route leisure operations. Southwest and Frontier together carry the largest share, and MKE's appeal for Chicago-area travelers — with parking rates and fares typically well below O'Hare (ORD) and Midway (MDW) — keeps its catchment unusually wide for a regional airport. The route network emphasizes Florida leisure (Orlando, Fort Lauderdale, Tampa, Fort Myers, Miami, Jacksonville), major East and West Coast hubs (Atlanta, Charlotte, Washington–Reagan, New York–LaGuardia, Newark, Boston, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles), Phoenix, Las Vegas, Denver, and dense Midwestern connections to Chicago, Minneapolis, Detroit, Dallas, and Houston. The airfield has five runways of decreasing capability — the primary 01L/19R at 9,990 ft (3,045 m), crosswind 07R/25L at 8,300 ft (2,530 m), plus three shorter supplementary runways (13/31, 07L/25R, and 01R/19L) — giving MKE unusual all-weather and general-aviation flexibility for its traffic volume. A single unified terminal with two main concourses (C and D) handles all commercial operations after the 2020-era consolidation closed the former Concourse E. MKE is named after General Billy Mitchell, the Milwaukee-born early-aviation pioneer regarded as the father of the U.S. Air Force; renaming proposals to "Milwaukee International" have circulated periodically but the Mitchell name remains in use.