Miami International Airport

Miami International Airport, which has the IATA Airport Code MIA, is, along with Atlanta's Hartsfield International Airport, one of the largest aerial gateways into the American South. Miami International Airport is located in Miami, Florida. It has flights to other places in the United States, as well as Canada, Latin America, and Europe.

The airport has long enjoyed such a lofty status because of Miami's closeness to all of Florida's touristic attractions, the city's economic flourishment and its large Latin American and European population.

Some special and charter flights leave Miami for Havana, Cuba. However, because of the United States embargo on that Caribbean nation, no scheduled flights are available between the two nearby cities.

In 2000, a private plane carrying Cuban immigrant Elian Gonzalez, 6 years old, and his father, departed this airport towards Maryland, where they later boarded a plane to Cuba.

The airport is a hub to American Airlines (mostly international flights), cargo airline Fine Air and charter airline Miami Air nowadays. In addition, it served as a hub to Eastern Airlines, Air Florida, the original National Airlines, and, from 1980 on, Pan Am. after Pan Am bought over National's routes.

Airline tragedies involving MIA include the 1972 crash of an Eastern Airlines L-1011 on the Everglades, which was the subject of Hollywood movie The Ghost Of Flight 411, the 1983 crash of an Air Florida Boeing 737 at the Potomac River in Washington DC (which was headed towards Miami), the December 20, 1995 crash of American Airlines Flight 965 into a mountain while it was on a route from Miami to Alfonso Bonilla Aragon International Airport in Cali, Colombia, the 1996 crash of a Valujet DC-9 on ValuJet Flight 592 that crashed in the everglades while attempting an emergency landing after taking off for Atlanta, and the 2000 crash of an Air France Concorde in Paris, which was heading to Miami to carry members of a cruise ship tour.

Another flight that almost ended in tragedy was American Airlines Flight 63. On December 22, 2001, the flight was enroute from Paris's Charles de Gaulle International Airport to Miami when alleged Al Qaida member Richard Reid tried to detonate a shoe bomb of his. A woman sniffed sulfur and caught him in the act. Reid was subdued by passengers and flight attendants. The flight was diverted to another airport, where Reid was arrested.

Miami International Airport has eight pier-shaped concourses radiating from a semicircular terminal.

Table of contents

1 Concourses

1.1 Concourse A
1.2 Concourse B
1.3 Concourse C
1.4 Concourse D
1.5 Concourse E
1.6 Concourse F
1.7 Concourse G
1.8 Concourse H
1.9 Other Carriers

2 External Links