Sacramento International Airport | |||||||||||||||
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Lower floor of the new Terminal B.
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Summary | |||||||||||||||
Airport type | Public | ||||||||||||||
Owner | County of Sacramento | ||||||||||||||
Operator | Sacramento County Airport System | ||||||||||||||
Serves | Sacramento, California | ||||||||||||||
Location | Sacramento County, California, U.S. | ||||||||||||||
Elevation AMSL | 27 ft / 8 m | ||||||||||||||
Coordinates | 38°41′44″N 121°35′27″W / 38.69556°N 121.59083°WCoordinates: 38°41′44″N 121°35′27″W / 38.69556°N 121.59083°W | ||||||||||||||
Website | www |
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Map | |||||||||||||||
Location in California | |||||||||||||||
Runways | |||||||||||||||
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Statistics (2016) | |||||||||||||||
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Source: Federal Aviation Administration
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Passengers | 10,118,794 |
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Aircraft operations | 111,197 |
Sacramento International Airport (IATA: SMF, ICAO: KSMF, FAA LID: SMF) is 10 miles (16 km) northwest of downtown Sacramento, in Sacramento County, California. It is run by the Sacramento County Airport System. Southwest Airlines carries about half the airline passengers. Sacramento International Airport served more than 10 million passengers in 2016.
Due to housing growth around Sacramento Executive Airport, the City of Sacramento Planning Department and the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors commissioned a study in the 1950s to move airline flights to a less populated area. In 1957 the proposed construction of Sacramento Metropolitan Airport and purchase of nearly 6,000 acres north of downtown Sacramento was considered extravagant, risky, poorly located and based on unrealistic passenger expectations.
Sacramento International Airport (SMF) opened October 21, 1967 as Sacramento Metropolitan Airport with one 8600-foot runway. Until then the airlines used Sacramento Municipal Airport (SAC), now called Sacramento Executive Airport. The estimate of 750,000 annual passengers soon proved conservative as the airport surpassed one million passengers during its first year. Sacramento Metropolitan Airport was the first airport west of the Mississippi built from the ground up for public use.
The airport initially had five airlines: Pacific Air Lines, Pacific Southwest Airlines (PSA), United Airlines, Western Airlines and West Coast Airlines. For a short time around 1975 PSA tried Lockheed L-1011 TriStars at Sacramento, nonstop to San Francisco and direct to Los Angeles. L-1011 flights were found uneconomical and PSA soon replaced the L-1011 with smaller jets such as the Boeing 727-200.