Rhodes Island Airport Code

[Crisoforo Schuhmacher]

Thisis a list of airports in Rhode Island (a U.S. state), grouped by type and sorted by location. It contains all public-use and military airports in the state. Some private-use and former airports may be included where notable, such as airports that were previously public-use, those with commercial enplanements recorded by the FAA or airports assigned an IATA airport code.

Rhode Island T. F. Green International Airport[6] (IATA: PVD, ICAO: KPVD, FAA LID: PVD) is a public international airport in Warwick, Rhode Island, United States, 6 miles (5.2 nmi; 9.7 km) south of the state's capital and largest city of Providence. Opened in 1931, the airport was named for former Rhode Island governor and longtime senator Theodore Francis Green. Rebuilt in 1996,[7] the renovated main terminal was named for former Rhode Island governor Bruce Sundlun. It is the first state-owned airport in the United States.[8]

T. F. Green Airport is a regional airport serving the FAA's New England Region in the FAA System Plan.[11] The airport is the largest and most active airport among the six operated by the Rhode Island Airport Corporation (RIAC). It is estimated the T.F. Green aerodrome has a potential serviceable market of some 7.5 million persons living within roughly 90-minutes of the airport.

T. F. Green Airport was dedicated on September 27, 1931, as Hillsgrove State Airport, drawing what was at that time the largest crowd to attend a public function in the country.[8] In 1933, the Rhode Island State Airport Terminal was built on Airport Road, then called Occupasstuxet Road.[12] In 1938, the airport was renamed in honor of Green, who had just been elected to the Senate two years earlier. At the time it had three 3,000 ft (910 m) concrete runways. The Army Air Force took control from 1942 to 1945, using it for flight training.[8] A September 1946 diagram shows runways 5, 10 and 16 all 4,000 ft (1,200 m) long;[13] in April 1951 runway 5 was 5,000 ft (1,500 m) and 5R was under construction. A few years later 5R was 5,466 ft (1,666 m), which it remained until extended to 6,466 ft (1,971 m) around 1967.

The April 1957 OAG shows 26 weekday departures: 11 Eastern, 10 American, four United, and one National. Nonstops did not reach beyond Boston and Newark until 1959 when Eastern started a DC-7B nonstop to Washington, which was the longest until United started Cleveland in 1968 and Chicago in 1970 and Eastern started Miami in 1969 and Atlanta in 1970. The first jets were Mohawk BAC-111s in 1966.

President Richard Nixon made a campaign stop at the airport on the night of Friday, November 3, 1972.[14] A crowd of 10,000 watched as Nixon, standing on the steps of Air Force One, urged voters to support Republican candidates Herbert F. DeSimone for Governor and John Chafee for U.S. Senator.[14] (Both lost, though Chafee later won the office in 1976.) Air Force One again touched down at T. F. Green on August 30, 1975, this time carrying President Gerald Ford, en route to a fundraiser in Newport.[15] He was greeted by a crowd of about 1,500 supporters,[15] as well as local politicians including Governor Philip W. Noel, Senator John O. Pastore, and Providence Mayor Buddy Cianci.[16]

To enhance itself as the lone airport for a metro area of over 1.6 million people, a new terminal was built on Post Road in 1964, replacing the old 1933 terminal along Airport Road. In 1996 this terminal was replaced, expanding to 18 gates, and adding a lower arrival level and an upper departure level. In 1997 four gates were added. Airlines added flights to T. F. Green Airport, including Air Canada,[17] Southwest,[18] SATA International (which operated flights to the Azores using an A310-300),[19] and Spirit Airlines.[20]

After the September 11 attacks in 2001, T. F. Green Airport, like most airports in the United States, faced a temporarily decrease in passengers and fewer flights from American Airlines (which once flew to Chicago O'Hare and Dallas/Fort Worth Airport), Spirit, and SATA. Until the 2015 finalization of the merger between American Airlines and US Airways, creating one single licensed carrier under the American Airlines name, the Providence metropolitan area was the largest MSA in the United States not served by American Airlines or any of its subsidiaries. The decrease in service was especially severe to Chicago O'Hare as between both United and American decreased the number of one-way daily seats from nearly a combined 1,400 to today's 225 daily one-way seats. Nine flights of 727, 737, 757 and MD-80 service downgraded to today's regional jet use. Since the HNTB-designed Bruce Sundlun Terminal opened in 1996, T. F. Green became more congested due to increased traffic and post-9/11 security changes.[21] Renovations followed, including expansion of baggage rooms to accommodate a new In-Line Explosive Detection System (EDS) Baggage Handling System, expanded security screening checkpoints, more concessions and ticket counters, and expansion of RIAC offices on the second and third floors.[22]

Traffic increased to a high of 5.7 million passengers in 2005, while at the same time Boston Logan was handling 25 million passengers. After 2005, airlines started consolidating service at larger airports by withdrawing service and reducing frequencies at mid-sized hubs and small-sized hubs. Airports such as T. F. Green, Jacksonville, Bradley, etc. were affected. The recession and Boston Logan's proximity to the Providence metro area also took its toll on T. F. Green as numbers decreased to 3.5 million in 2015. In 2017 numbers have grown just shy of 4 million passenger. With the addition of Amazon Air, which includes its own Prime Jets plus DHL and Atlas Air Jets, cargo numbers have increased to nearly 44 million pounds. This will increase with a full year of service from Amazon Air. Amazon moved their cargo service from T. F. Green to Bradley International Airport as of August 1, 2018.

T. F. Green was again visited by Air Force One, a Boeing 747, on October 25, 2010,[24] a Concorde operated by British Airways on June 13, 1988,[25] and an Airbus A340 flown by Iberia Airlines on June 1, 2011, which transported the Men's Spanish national soccer team for their match against the U.S. National Team on June 4, 2011, at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts.[26] T. F. Green was visited by Air Force One again on October 31, 2014, carrying President Barack Obama.[27]

From 1998 until 2013, T. F. Green had regular service to Toronto Pearson International Airport first via Air Jazz and then by Air Georgian after 9/11, both did business as express carriers for Air Canada.[28] In the early 1990s Leisure Air provided twice weekly seasonal service to Bermuda. Charters such as North American Air and Buffalo Air handled scheduled charter service to the Azores from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s. SATA International, now known as Azores Airlines, has recently resumed seasonal service to the Azores, having previously offered service until 2010.[29] In 2015, service was announced to Frankfurt, Germany by Condor and Praia, in the Cape Verde islands, by TACV. The Condor service to Frankfurt marked the first non-stop route to mainland Europe from Providence; however, the flight was later suspended for unspecified reasons.[30] February 6, 2017, USA Today announced that Norwegian Air had selected Providence's T. F. Green Airport as its base for flights to Europe.[31] Norwegian Air Shuttle operated from Providence using new Boeing 737 MAX planes for its service to cities in Western Europe, however as of now the service is cut due to the groundings of the aircraft related to its MCAS system.[32][needs update] The official announcements were made February 23, 2017, with flights starting to Belfast, Cork, Dublin, Edinburgh and Shannon. Later, flights were added to Bergen in Norway, Pointe--Pitre in Guadeloupe, and Fort-de-France in Martinique. These routes were gradually dropped due to poor load factors, and the Boeing 737 MAX grounding. Norwegian's last flight from Providence operated on September 15, 2019.[33][34]

On October 1, 2017, T. F. Green's runway 5/23 was officially opened for use at its new expanded length of 8,700 feet. Planning on the project began in the 1990s, and work on the expansion began in 2013. The project included building additional safety measures in the event of airplane overruns, removal of nearby utility poles and trees to clear approach lanes, and moving an entire city park from one side of the airport to the other. Officials are hopeful that the longer runway will attract more longer-range nonstop flights, such as the international routes that Norwegian Air began flying in 2017, as well as enhance safety for short-distance flights, giving pilots more runway to use in the case of poor weather conditions.[35] The runway expansion was desired because, as the Rhode Island Airport Corporation (RIAC) wrote in 2001,[36] the master plan completed in 1997 failed to envision the "tremendous growth" that T. F. Green experienced. The report identified the lack of runway length as a hindrance to "range and diversity of service", in particular emphasizing ability to reach non-hub cities, the west coast, and international locations. Challenges for T. F. Green in expanding the runway were the residential and commercial developments around it. Many residents opposed the expansion.[37]

In February 2018, the Rhode Island Airport Corporation (RIAC) formally petitioned the state legislature to change the name of the airport to "Rhode Island International Airport".[39] RIAC believed the name change would both reflect the airport's international flight presence and better describe the location it serves. A bill introduced that month, H7673A,[40] was not adopted.

In 2021, revised proposal H6051,[41] which would change the airport's name to "Rhode Island T.F. Green International Airport", was passed by the Rhode Island House of Representatives on May 11.[42] The proposal was approved by the Rhode Island Senate the following month.[43] In June 2021, the airport's name was officially changed.[6] In April 2024, two ten-foot tall signs were installed along Interstate 95 with the new name.[44][45]

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