Colorado Springs Airport

Busy morning ramp

In 1927 the airport opened on 640 acres (260 ha) 7 miles (11 km) east of the city, with two gravel runways. In the late 1930s the first scheduled airline flight went from El Paso, Texas, through Pueblo, Colorado Springs, to Denver and back. The first municipal terminal was built in 1942 in an art deco style. Soon after the terminal was built the field was taken over by the military in the months preceding World War II. After the war, the city regained control.

In 1966 a new terminal was built on the west side of the runways, just east of Powers Boulevard. This terminal expanded by the 1980s, with a six gate addition. By 1991 the airport had three 150-foot (46 m) wide runways, one 13,501 feet (4,115 m) long, making it the longest runway in Colorado until 16R/34L, a 16,000-foot (4,900 m) runway, opened at Denver International Airport in September 2003. In 1991 the city approved a new terminal, two miles east of the former terminal, in the south-center part of the airport. The 280,000-square-foot (26,000 m²) terminal opened on October 22, 1994 with 12 gates; it was designed by the Van Sant Group and cost $140 million. In the 1990s a second, 5-gate concourse was added on the east side of the main terminal.

In 1996, the 1941 passenger terminal, two hangars, and a caretaker residence — by that time all located on Peterson Air Force Base — were inscribed on the National Register of Historic Places. They form the campus of the Peterson Air and Space Museum.[3][4]

From the 1980s to the present day, the airport has tried to expand service. The largest number of passengers was nearly 5 million in 1996 when now-defunct Western Pacific Airlines had a hub at COS (they moved it to Denver International Airport in late 1996). Their timetable for 15 June shows 33 daily departures to 20 airports between the west coast and Newark and Washington Dulles. Frontier Airlines added and dropped various routes from Colorado Springs throughout the 2010s.[5] Southwest Airlines announced in October 2020 that they would start serving the airport in 2021.[6]

The airport covers 7,200 acres (2,900 ha) and has three paved runways: 17L/35R, 13,501 ft × 150 ft (4,115 m × 46 m) long, 17R/35L, 11,022 ft × 150 ft (3,360 m × 46 m) and 13/31, 8,269 ft × 150 ft (2,520 m × 46 m).[2]

• On March 3, 1991, United Airlines Flight 585, a Boeing 737-291 flying from Peoria, Illinois, to Colorado Springs via Denver, crashed on final approach to Colorado Springs Runway 35 after a rudder malfunction caused the aircraft to roll over and dive, killing all 25 on board.
• On December 21, 1997, a Beechcraft King Air operated by Aviation Charter flying in from Minneapolis St. Paul International Airport impacted terrain at Colorado Springs Airport in fog during a missed instrument landing system (ILS) approach. Both passengers on board were Northwest Airlines mechanics being flown in to repair a Northwest Airlines aircraft at COS. The pilot and one passenger were killed, the other passenger sustained serious injuries.[15]
• On April 16, 2018, a fire broke out on the airport's roof. There were no casualties, but the event resulted in the airport being closed for a single day.[16]

• List of airports in the Denver area

• Official airport website
• Colorado Springs Municipal Airport at Colorado DOT website
• FAA Airport Diagram (PDF), effective January 28, 2021
• Resources for this airport:
  • AirNav airport information for KCOS
  • ASN accident history for COS
  • FlightAware airport information and live flight tracker
  • NOAA/NWS weather observations: current, past three days
  • SkyVector aeronautical chart for KCOS
  • FAA current COS delay information
• Flight path in Colorado Springs