Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport

Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport is the busiest commercial airport in Louisiana and the primary Gulf Coast gateway between the Mississippi River corridor and the Caribbean, serving 33 airlines on 221 routes to 115 nonstop destinations. Named in 2001 for the city's native son Louis Armstrong on the centennial of his birth, MSY is located in Kenner in suburban Jefferson Parish, 17 km (10.5 mi) west of downtown New Orleans on the southern shore of Lake Pontchartrain at just 4 ft (1.2 m) of elevation — one of the lowest-elevation major airports in the United States, a hydrological fact that drove extensive pump and levee infrastructure around the airfield after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The MSY IATA code is a historical artifact of the airport's original name, Moisant Stock Yards, a tribute to aviator John Moisant who died in a 1910 crash at what was then cattle-grazing land. A new North Terminal designed by Cesar Pelli's firm Pelli Clarke & Partners opened on the opposite (north) side of the airfield in November 2019, replacing the aging 1959 terminal complex. The new facility consolidated all passenger operations into a single 972,000-square-foot building with 35 gates across three concourses (A, B, C), and became one of the first major US airports built in the 21st century entirely from a blank-slate site on the same airfield. No US airline maintains a hub at MSY, but Southwest Airlines, Delta, American, United, Frontier, Spirit, and JetBlue all fly heavy schedules driven by New Orleans's position as a top-10 US leisure destination and its role as offshore oil-and-gas crew-change airport for Gulf of Mexico platforms. MSY operates two runways: the primary 11/29 at 10,104 ft (3,080 m) paved with Porous European Mix (PEM) friction surface, and a shorter crosswind 02/20 at 7,002 ft (2,134 m). The proximity to Lake Pontchartrain drives frequent low-visibility operations, and hurricane season (June–November) periodically forces brief full closures and large-scale aircraft ferrying operations.