Centreburg Gateway International Airport

Centreburg Gateway International Airport is the primary international airport serving Centreburg, and is also the main international gateway into Corraile. Located some 20km away from the Centreburg Downtown Region, it is also the largest international airports in North America, handling more international traffic than any other airport in North America (36,229,010 international passengers in 2010), and is also one of the largest freight centres in North America. In 2010, the airport handled over 46 million passengers, making it the 14th busiest airport in the world.In the last few years it has made extensive improvements to terminals, roadways and inter-terminal transportation.

Built in the late 1960s to alleviate congestion in the city's old Westlane Airport, the airport was officially inaugurated on June 7, 1971, when the airport received it's first 747, Pan Am Clipper 226 from John F. Kennedy International Airport. Since then, the airport has become a major hub for both Corrailite and foreign carriers alike, who use the airport as a transit point for long-distance transatlantic flights.

Centreburg Gateway has three passenger terminals with a total annual handling capacity of 65 million passengers. Terminal 1 opened in 1971, followed by Terminal 2 in 1987 and Terminal 3 in 2012. Plans for a fourth terminal are currently in the pipeline, and if approved, will likely be opened in 2018.

History
Ever since the end of World War II, Centreburg was served by Westlane Airport, which was the largest airport in the Centreburg area at the time. However, due to its proximity to both urban areas and the sea, it was unable to expand its facilities to cope with the increasing demands of the commercial aviation sector - the number of passengers passing through the airport grew at an average rate of 15% per year between 1955 and 1965, while aircraft serving the airport also became increasingly larger in size. However, the airport's relatively short runways then, at approximately 1600m (5249ft), prevented larger jet aircraft from landing at the airport without strict weight restrictions. Until the introduction of short-field capable jets such as the Boeing 727 and Douglas DC-9, the only jet service provided at the airport was the regular Freedo-Colganston-Centreburg shuttle, served by the Boeing 720 which could carry only 100 passengers (as opposed to it's capacity of 147) due to weight regulations. With growth in global aviation transport, the airport was facing congestion problems. Its inability to cope with the rising traffic became critical by the 1970s, when widebodied aircraft such as the Boeing 747 and Douglas DC-10 entered service with Corrailite and foreign carriers.

It was therefore decided that Centreburg, as a growing metropolis (and future capital), required a much larger airport, situated further away from the city, to better serve the growing demand for air travel to the city. Thus, initial surveys for a suitable site were begun in 1959, just as expansion works were being carried out to extend Westlane Airport's operating life and capacity. Care was taken in choosing a site that would not impede on further urban and suburban development of the city, and as a result planners decided to develop the airport at an inland site rather than a coastal area, believing (rightly, as later proved) that future development would be situated near the coastline. The site selected was a piece of farmland some 20km from the city centre, and was approved as the site for the new airport. Initial construction began a year later, and after years of earthworks which included flattening the land in the area (which included filling the land with more than 3 million sq m of soil) and piling works to ensure that the land could handle the heavy weight of operating aircraft.



In 1971, Centreburg Gateway opened for initial operations with a single runway (Runway 28/10, today 28L/10R) and a single terminal, the rest of the airport still in the final stages of construction. It was not until 1973 that all three runways, along with the cargo facility, opened for full operations. The airport, with both it's main runways longer than 3000m, was finally able to serve the city effectively, allowing dense operation of large aircraft, timely given that the first major widebodies (Boeing 747, Douglas DC-10) were just entering service. Corraile Airways, along with other Corrailite carriers based in Centreburg, shifted all operations to the airport, and Corraile Airways began it's first scheduled widebody service with a Boeing 747-100 operating a transatlanic service to London.

The airport continued to grow rapidly into the 1970s and 1980s, in tandem with the growth of Centreburg as the largest city in Corraile but also with the continued expansion of Corraile's "Big Three" airlines of the period: Corraile Airways, Corraile Central and Corraile Airlines International. Passenger use surpassed the milestone of 5 million in 1982, and crossed the 10 million mark by 1990. To cope with rising passenger numbers, and the give Corrailite carriers a dedicated terminal space, Terminal 2 was opened in 1987, boosting the airport's passenger handling capacity to 35 million. At the same time, the number of foreign carriers operating out of the airport increased steadily as the availability of a major airport with modern equipment in a strategically important location encouraged foreign carriers to operate out of the city. European carriers especially, such as British Airways, Lufthansa and Air France used the airport as a stopover between their respective European home bases and cities in the US West Coast such as Los Angeles or San Francisco. In addition, Centrburg between 1983 and 1985 was the only North American destination served by Aeroflot after the Soviet carrier was barred from US airspace in 1983. Landing rights were later denied in 1985 due to pressure by the US Government.

The liberalisation of the Corrailite aviation industry in the wake of the demise of Corraile Airways led to even further growth despite the reduction in passenger numbers handled by the airport after the bankruptcy of it's largest tenant and operator. Terminal 2, along with Corraile Airlines, the sole remaining carrier of the "Big Three", was used by the newer small carriers that had mushroomed to take the place of Corraile Airways. The growth of these companies throughout the decade would fuel the growth of the airport further, and by 2002 the airport had reached it's maximum capacity of 35 million. To help the airport cope, an enlargement and refurbishment of Terminal 1 was carried out, bringing the airport's capacity up to 45 million.