Valley International Airport
| Valley International Airport | |||||||||||||||||||
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USGS 2006 orthophoto
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| Summary | |||||||||||||||||||
| Airport type | Public | ||||||||||||||||||
| Owner | City of Harlingen | ||||||||||||||||||
| Serves | Harlingen, Texas | ||||||||||||||||||
| Elevation AMSL | 36 ft / 11 m | ||||||||||||||||||
| Coordinates | 26°13′38″N 097°39′18″W / 26.22722°N 97.65500°WCoordinates: 26°13′38″N 097°39′18″W / 26.22722°N 97.65500°W | ||||||||||||||||||
| Website | www.FlyTheValley.com | ||||||||||||||||||
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 HRL
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Source: Federal Aviation Administration
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| Aircraft operations | 36,616 |
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| Based aircraft | 43 |
Valley International Airport (IATA: HRL, ICAO: KHRL, FAA LID: HRL) (Rio Grande Valley International Airport) is a city owned airport three miles northeast of Harlingen, in Cameron County, Texas. It is the busiest airport in the Rio Grande Valley by passenger count.
The National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems for 2011–2015 categorized it as a primary commercial service airport.Federal Aviation Administration records say the airport had 417,557 passenger boardings (enplanements) in calendar year 2008, 367,269 in 2009 and 373,438 in 2010.
After the airport's closure by the military in 1962 following a 1961 budget proposal by President John F. Kennedy to close 70 air bases in the U.S., the airfield was turned over to the City of Harlingen and then converted to civil use as Valley International Airport after Hurricane Beulah flooded the original Harlingen civil airport (at 26°12′22″N 97°45′14″W / 26.206°N 97.754°W) in 1967.
Trans-Texas Airways (TTa) and its successor Texas International Airlines served the airport for many years. In 1968, Trans-Texas was serving Harlingen with Douglas DC-9-10 twin jets with nonstop flights to Corpus Christi and Houston Hobby Airport (HOU) as well as direct jet service to Dallas Love Field (DAL), Little Rock and Memphis. Trans-Texas was also operating Convair 600 turboprops into the airport at this time with nonstop flights to Monterrey, Mexico and Tampico, Mexico with direct one stop service to Veracruz, Mexico in addition to Convair 600 flights to Austin, Corpus Christi, Dallas, Houston, Laredo, San Antonio and other destinations in Texas. By 1978, Texas International was operating all flights from the airport with DC-9 jets with nonstop service to Austin and Houston Intercontinental Airport (IAH) and was also flying daily direct service from Harlingen to Los Angeles (LAX) via intermediate stops at Houston, Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) and Albuquerque.
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