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Gerald R. Ford International Airport is a commercial airport in Cascade Township about southeast of Grand Rapids, Michigan, United States. Originally called Kent County Airport and later Kent County International Airport; in December 1999 the airport was renamed for former president Gerald R. Ford, the 40th Vice President and the 38th President of the United States. The airport is the largest commercial airport in the West Michigan region and is the second largest airport in Michigan after Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport. The airport has flights to 23 domestic cities. In 2014 the airport broke its record for passengers, with 2,335,105 total. ==History== Grand Rapids' first airport broke ground in November 1919, south of downtown. This was eight years after the area witnessed its first airplane landing which was a Wright biplane at Comstock Park State Fairgrounds on September 10, 1911. The airport was operated by the Kent County Board of Supervisors. The first scheduled air service in the United States was between Grand Rapids and Detroit (actually Dearborn's Ford Airport) on a Ford-Stout monoplane named ''Miss Grand Rapids'', which started July 26, 1926. Circa 1940 the airport was between 32nd and 36th St, from Jefferson Ave east to the railroad; the west end was soon extended south to just north of Himes St and in the 1950s one 5700-ft runway reached south to 44th St. In 1959 construction began on the present airport in Cascade Township, several miles east of the original one. The new airport opened November 23, 1963, and was dedicated June 6, 1964; it had 6600-ft runway 8/26 and 3400-ft 18/36. The first scheduled jet was a United Airlines Boeing 737-200 on April 28, 1968, from Chicago O'Hare. The aircraft, N9003U, was named 'City of Grand Rapids'. In 1968 the only scheduled nonstops beyond Michigan were to Chicago and Green Bay. On January 27, 1977, Kent County Airport was renamed Kent County International Airport with the opening of a U.S. Customs Bureau Office in the main terminal building. In 1997 the new runway 17/35 was added to allow the airport to continue operations during the $32 million reconstruction of runway 8R/26L, completed in 2001. A passenger terminal renovation was completed in 2000 at a cost of about $50 million. Runways 8R/26L and runway 17/35 have ILS. The airport also has a 5,000 ft. general aviation runway north of the main 8R/26L runway. In 2004 the airport served more than 2 million passengers for the first time in a year. In 2010 the airport broke the 2004 record with almost 2.2 million passengers, as increase of over 23% from 2009. On January 2, 2007, Air Force one carried the remains of former President Gerald Ford to the airport, which is named after him, as part of funeral services culminating in burial at his Presidential Museum in Grand Rapids the next day. Until October 31, 2011, the airport was a focus city for Allegiant Air. In January 2012 Southwest Airlines announced it would continue AirTran flights to Grand Rapids and eventually transfer them to Southwest. In April 2012 Frontier Airlines ended flights from Grand Rapids to Milwaukee. In 2014, the airport set a new record when it served 2,335,105 passengers.〔http://www.grr.org/PDFs/NRs/nrPaxRecord15.pdf〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Gerald R. Ford International Airport」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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