Terminal D also held customs and INS until the opening of the new Federal Inspection Service (FIS) building, completed on January 25, 2005. Flights from Canada on Air Canada and WestJet arrive in terminal A. Terminal D is the arrival point for all international flights except for United flights, which use Terminal E. The rest of Terminal E opened on January 7, 2004. Cutrer Terminal C opened in 1981, the Mickey Leland International Arrivals Building (now called Terminal D) opened in May 1990, and the new Terminal E partially opened on June 3, 2003. Īs of 2007, Terminals A and B remain from the airport's original design.
On August 28, 1990, Continental Airlines agreed to build its maintenance center at George Bush Intercontinental Airport Continental agreed to do so because the city of Houston agreed to provide city-owned land near the airport. The name change took effect on May 2, 1997. Bush, the 41st President of the United States. In April 1997, Houston City Council unanimously voted to rename the airport George Bush Intercontinental Airport/Houston, after George H. Instead of renaming the whole airport, the city named Mickey Leland International Arrivals Building, which would later become Mickey Leland Terminal D, after the congressman. Congressman who died in an aviation accident in Ethiopia. In the late 1980s, Houston City Council considered a plan to rename the airport after Mickey Leland-an African-American U.S.
defended the municipality on appeal to the Texas Supreme Court. Ball Construction of San Antonio, sued the city of Houston for $11 million in damages, but assistant city attorney Joseph Guy Rollins Jr. Houston Intercontinental had been scheduled to open in 1967, but design changes regarding the terminals created cost overruns and construction delays. Hobby remained open as a general aviation airport and was once again used for scheduled passenger airline jet service two years later when Southwest Airlines initiated intrastate airline service nonstop between Hobby and Dallas Love Field in 1971. Hobby Airport moved to Intercontinental upon the airport's completion.
The airport's IATA code of IAH derived from the stylization of the airport's name as " Intercontinental Airport of Houston." All scheduled passenger airline service formerly operated from William P. Houston Intercontinental Airport, which was the original name for the airport, opened in June 1969. This annexation, along with the 1965 annexations of the Bayport area, the Fondren Road area, and an area west of Sharpstown, resulted in a gain of 51,251 acres (20,741 ha) of land for the city limits. The City of Houston annexed the Intercontinental Airport area in 1965. Most of Jetero Boulevard was later renamed Will Clayton Parkway. Although the name Jetero was no longer used in official planning documents after 1961, the airport's eastern entrance was named Jetero Boulevard. The holding company for the land was named the Jet Era Ranch Corporation, but a typographical error transformed the words "Jet Era" into "Jetero" and the airport site subsequently became known as the Jetero airport site. Hobby Airport (at the time known as Houston International Airport). George Bush Intercontinental Airport's air traffic control towerĪ group of Houston businessmen purchased the site for Bush Intercontinental Airport in 1957 to preserve it until the city of Houston could formulate a plan for a new airport as a replacement for William P.