St. Pete–Clearwater International Airport

St. Pete–Clearwater International Airport
USGS 1998 orthophoto
IATA: PIE ICAO: KPIE FAA LID: PIE
Summary
Airport type	Public
Owner	County of Pinellas
Serves	Tampa Bay Area
Location	Pinellas County
Focus city for	Allegiant Air
Elevation AMSL	11 ft / 3 m
Coordinates	27°54′36″N 082°41′15″W / 27.91000°N 82.68750°W / 27.91000; -82.68750Coordinates: 27°54′36″N 082°41′15″W / 27.91000°N 82.68750°W / 27.91000; -82.68750
Website	www.Fly2PIE.com
Map
PIE Show map of Florida PIE Show map of the US Location of airport in Florida / United States
Runways
Direction Length Surface ft m 18/36 9,730 2,966 Asphalt 4/22 5,903 1,799 Asphalt
Statistics
Aircraft operations (2016) 105,273 Based aircraft (2017) 261 Total passengers (2012) 865,942 Cargo tonnage (2011) 15,060
Sources: FAA, Airport website

St. Pete–Clearwater International Airport (IATA: PIE, ICAO: KPIE, FAA LID: PIE) is a public/military airport in Pinellas County, Florida serving the Tampa Bay Area. It is nine miles north of downtown St. Petersburg, seven miles southeast of Clearwater and seventeen miles southwest of Tampa.

The National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems for 2011–2015 categorized it as a primary commercial service airport since it has over 10,000 passenger boardings (enplanements) per year. In 2014 it showed double-digit growth and handled more than one million passengers, setting a record.

Most scheduled airline traffic in the Tampa Bay Area uses Tampa International Airport (TPA), ten miles (16 km) east, but St. Pete–Clearwater remains a destination for low-cost carriers. St. Pete–Clearwater is a focus city for Las Vegas-based Allegiant Air. PIE is less busy than Tampa, and is frequently used by pilots of private planes and executive jets.

The airport uses "Tampa Bay The Easy Way" as an advertising slogan and Fly2PIE in reference to its three-letter IATA and FAA codes.

The airport is on the west shoreline of Tampa Bay, six miles (10 km) north of St. Petersburg, Florida (the "birthplace of commercial air transportation"). Barely a decade after the pioneer flight of the Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk in 1903, the first tickets for airline travel were sold by the St. Petersburg-Tampa Airboat Line of Tony Jannus to fare-paying passengers. Using a Benoist XIV amphibious aircraft, the inaugural flight took place from a location near the downtown St. Petersburg Pier. Mayor Abram C. Pheil of St. Petersburg and Mae Peabody of Dubuque, Iowa, were the first passengers, flying across the bay to Tampa and, according to a United Press account, reportedly reaching the maximum speed of 75 miles per hour during the flight. Other reports indicate that they reached an altitude of 50 feet (15 m).