Miami International: Planes Crossing Lejeune Road and the Hub War at MIA

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Miami International Airport began in 1928, when Pan American Airways bought a 116-acre plot on Northwest 36th Street. By 1929 it was Pan American Airport, the first mainland U.S. airport with international port of entry facilities, with a domed terminal by Delano and Aldrich built for Sikorsky amphibians and Fokker aircraft. Geography drove it: Pan Am began airmail to Havana in 1928, and by 1930 Pan Am and Eastern Air Transport made Miami the clearing point for a network running from Canada to the tip of South America. In the 1940s, National Airlines planes taxied across Lejeune Road while drivers waited at the light. On January 1, 1946, Pan Am handed the field to the Dade County Port Authority, which absorbed the 1,400-acre Miami Army Airfield and other land into a 2,500-acre Miami International Airport.

Eastern Airlines, once led by Apollo 8 astronaut Frank Borman and headquartered in Building 16, sank into labor unrest and bankruptcy by 1989. American Airlines under Robert Crandall bought Eastern's Latin American routes in the 1990 liquidation and grew from 34 daily Miami departures in 1989 to 301 in 1995. Its North Terminal, Concourse D, cost $2.85 billion; Miami-Dade County seized control of construction in 2005 and it was finished in 2011. In 2021 MIA passed JFK as the busiest U.S. gateway for international passengers and led the country in international cargo. In 2024 it handled nearly 56 million passengers and 3 million tons of freight, and a $5 billion plan running to 2035 targets 77 million passengers by 2040, with seven 2026 FIFA World Cup matches nearby at Hard Rock Stadium.

• The 20th Street Terminal opened in 1959 as the largest central airport terminal in the world, with five concourses and a 270-room hotel.
• British Airways flew the Concorde three times a week between Miami and London, via Washington, from 1984 to 1991.
• Iberia opened a sterile international-to-international transit hub at MIA in 1992 and abandoned it in 2004 after post-9/11 U.S. transit visa rules.
• United paid $135 million for Pan Am's remaining Latin American routes in 1991 but closed its Miami crew base in 2004.
• A new Amtrak platform at the Miami Intermodal Center sits closed because it was built too short for Amtrak trains.