Eppley Airfield

History

Eppley Airfield began as an extension of Levi Carter Park near East Omaha in 1925. That year, the City of Omaha acquired 200 acres of cleared land on the east side of Carter Lake. Almost immediately, planes started landing and taking off there. A lawsuit was launched against the City in 1927 when a group wanted to build a hangar there. The lawsuit failed and the land was called both the Omaha Municipal Airport and the American Legion Airport.

The April 1957 OAG shows 42 scheduled airline departures per day, with 23 by United Airlines and 19 by Braniff Airlines. In January 1960, the City of Omaha renamed the field in honor of Eugene Eppley, whose foundation donated US$1,000,000 for improvements to the field. This was matched by the federal government and improvements were made to handle jets at the airport, and the first jets landed were United 720s in August 1960.

The terminal building, opened in 1961, was designed by James C. Buckley, Inc. Concourse B opened in 1970, and it was remodeled when Concourse A opened in 1986.

Hubs and operations

Midwest Airlines, then known as Midwest Express, operated a hub at Eppley Airfield from 1995 to 2002 with flights to Milwaukee, Newark, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Orlando, and Washington–Reagan; the airport remained a focus city with nonstops to Milwaukee and Washington until the airline merged with Frontier Airlines in 2010. As of January 2017, Omaha has no international passenger flights. The airport handled more than 4.1 million passengers in 2014. Southwest Airlines, Delta Air Lines, and American Airlines are the first-, second-, and third-largest carriers and serve about 33 percent, 22 percent, and 22 percent, respectively, of passengers.

Popular culture

Several films have used Eppley for a few scenes including the 2002 feature film About Schmidt which included scenes filmed inside and outside the terminal building, and the 2009 feature film Up in the Air which made use of the south end of the terminal building during filming.

Parking Garage

On February 18, 2015, The Omaha Airport Authority board approved the plan for design work to begin on an approximately $71 million, six-story parking garage. The new garage is to be built north of the existing six-story garage, and construction on the first project would begin in about a year. The project will be expected to be completed in fall 2017. The first phase would provide 2,200 parking stalls, with 850 stalls for rental cars and 1,350 public stalls.

Airport

Construction and upgrades are planned for Eppley Airfield's terminal and tarmac. An expansion to the runway 36/18 will be added in order to have larger aircraft landing, as well as taxiway A being enlarged to handle such aircraft. Next, Concourses A and B will be joined together by a long corridor, and expanded in the northern direction, adding 8 more jetways. This expansion will also add 6-8 more security checkpoints, instead of the current two. After construction, there will be a total of 28 gates, with some able to handle larger aircraft. On either side of the "megaterminal" the ramp will be extended for overnight aircraft parking.

In January 2016, Eppley Airfield completed the expansion of its on-site United States Customs and Border Protection facility (CBP) to provide greater customs and inspection services for international passengers. While Eppley Airfield is classified as a "Customs Landing Rights Airport" for international flights (officially an "international airport") by United States Customs and Border Protection, there is no regularly scheduled international passenger service; however, the airport does handle international charter and private flights.

Location

The airport is northeast of downtown Omaha in east Omaha. Although the airport is in Nebraska on the west side of the Missouri River, it is surrounded on the east, west and south by the state of Iowa: the Missouri River formerly formed an oxbow west of the land that became Eppley Airfield. The river cut off the oxbow during an 1877 flood, leaving behind Carter Lake on a portion of its former course; the Supreme Court ruled in 1893 that though the land cut off by the river's changed route now lay west of the Missouri, it remained part of Iowa. This land eventually became the city of Carter Lake, Iowa.

Central Terminal

The Central Terminal contains the ground transportation center and rental car counters.

Gate System

The gate system of Eppley Airfield is a "running total system". This means that when a new concourse begins, the gate number does not reset to 1 with the prefix of the Concourse's letter. For example, the gates go from A10 to B11; there is no B1, as the running total keeps the number going with a different prefix.

Ground transportation

MAT Line 16 provides limited weekday-only rush hour service southbound toward downtown and northbound toward the North Omaha Transit Center. Passenger access is located directly outside the central terminal.

Accidents and incidents