DFW International Airport celebrates 50 years
The DFW International Airport turns 50 Saturday. Since Jan. 13, 1974, what started as the DFW Regional Airport, has grown by leaps and bounds to what it is today—No. 2 in the world for passengers. The man who's been at the helm for the last 10 years tells CBS News Texas' Doug Dunbar what the airport is today has everything to do with a decision made in the late 1960s.
"For those leaders back then to give us 17,000 acres in the middle of farmland...that has enabled us to grow like we have," DFW CWO Sean Donohue said.
In 1974, DFW served seven million passengers. Fifty years later, it's now more than ten times that number—approximately 72.2 million in 2023.
None of it would have been possible without airline deregulation in 1978, followed by American Airlines and Delta introducing what we know as the Hub and Spoke model of air travel.
"That's when it really exploded in the U.S.," Donohue explained. "That's when you saw, instead of three to four flights a day between DFW and New York, you saw eight, nine, 10, 12 flights a day because of the all the incoming traffic."
Other big moments that helped lay the future for even more growth was the International Terminal D opening in 2005. So too did DFW's Skylink train, connecting terminals A through E.
The boom in air traffic became a boom for our North Texas economy.
Today, the airport alone employs 65,000 workers and indirectly accounts for over 600,000 local jobs
Donahue says it adds up to a $37 billion economic impact, annually, in North Texas.
But the airport we know today has been through some turbulence. Just two months after Donahue started in 2013, he learned a quick lesson on the airport's shortcomings during a monster December ice storm that paralyzed North Texas—and the airport.
"We didn't have enough equipment at the airport. We had enough equipment to keep one side of the airfield open," he recounted. "We said, 'Well, you know what? We got to be ready.' So, we went out and spent tens of millions of dollars to make sure we had equipment for both sides."
Then in 2020, the COVID pandemic would bring the airport to its knees, losing 95% of business and revenue almost overnight.
Today, Donahue and his staff oversee 171 gates, and seven runways, but maintain a constant eye on what's next.
"Absolutely focused on the next 10 years, because in the next ten years we're going to invest billions of dollars into this airport," Donahue shared. "We're building Terminal F, the sixth terminal. And we are literally tearing down and rebuilding Terminal C.
The literal rebuilding of Terminal C, the busiest at the airport, will come in phases, and won't be complete for another three to four years. But the new Terminal F should open in 2026 or 2027, and that is the key to a question many are asking: When is Southwest coming to the airport?
"I would expect that sometime in the next year we'll come to an agreement, probably, with southwest and understand what their plans and needs are," Donahue said.
For Southwest to expand at DFW, they need gates, which is the one luxury DFW airport can't offer right now.
"Unless some other airline shrinks, drops gates—and we've been candid about that with Southwest—their opportunity to come out is when F is built," Donahue concluded.
The new Terminal F will start out with 15 gates, and then add another 25 to 30 gates, according to Donohue. DFW is also going to build a micro grid, to provide power internally for what they predict well be airport rental car agencies filled mostly with electric vehicles in the next five years.
Happy 50th DFW International!
