St. Louis Lambert International Airport , commonly referred to as Lambert Field or simply Lambert, is the primary international airport serving St. Louis, Missouri, and its metropolitan area. Covering . Effective February 19, 2026. of land, it is the largest and busiest airport in the U.S. state of Missouri, being located northwest of downtown St. Louis in unincorporated St. Louis County between Berkeley and Bridgeton. The airport provides nonstop service to over 80 destinations within the United States, Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Europe, having served nearly 16 million passengers in 2024.
Named for Olympic medalist and prominent St. Louis aviator Albert Bond Lambert, the airport rose to international prominence in the 20th century thanks to its association with Charles Lindbergh, its groundbreaking air traffic control (ATC), its status as the primary hub of Trans World Airlines (TWA), and its iconic terminal.
St. Louis Lambert International Airport is connected by the MetroLink mass transportation rail system to other parts of the St. Louis metropolitan area, including a future connection to the region's secondary commercial airport, MidAmerica St. Louis Airport about to the east.
History Beginnings
The airport had its beginnings in 1909, when the Aero Club of St. Louis created a balloon launching base called the "Permanent Aviation Field and Dirigible Harbor" in Kinloch Park, a suburban development of the 1890s. In October 1910, the airfield hosted the first International Air Meet, attracting "many famous persons," including the Wright brothers, who brought six airplanes and their Exhibition Team. President Theodore Roosevelt accepted the club's telegraphed invitation to attend, and after initially ruling out a flight, took off on October 11 with pilot Arch Hoxsey, becoming the first U.S. president to fly. The following year, the airfield—generally called "Kinloch Field"—was the takeoff point for what is generally regarded as the first parachute jump from an airplane. The club's lease on the land expired in 1912, and the field was closed and its grandstand demolished. Efforts to revive the facility were unsuccessful.
In June 1920, a nearby 170-acre field was leased to the Missouri Aeronautical Society, which named its facility the "St. Louis Flying Field." Among the Society's leading members was Albert Bond Lambert, an Olympic silver medalist golfer in the 1904 Summer Games, president of Lambert Pharmaceutical Corporation (which made Listerine), and the first person to receive a pilot's license in St. Louis. So vigorous was Lambert in his efforts to promote St. Louis aviation that in 1923 the field was renamed "Lambert-St. Louis Flying Field." Lambert purchased the field outright in February 1925, and added hangars and a passenger terminal. In the late 1920s, the airport became the first with an air traffic control system–albeit one that communicated with pilots via waving flags. The first controller was Archie League.
Charles Lindbergh's first piloting job was flying airmail for Robertson Aircraft Corporation from the airfield. He stopped at the airport during his cross-country San Diego to New York flight about a week before his record-breaking flight to Paris in 1927. In February 1928, the City of St. Louis leased the airport for $1 million. Later that year, Lambert sold the airport to the city after a $2 million bond issue was passed, making it one of the first municipally owned airports in the United States.
In 1925, the airport became home to Naval Air Station St. Louis, a Naval Air Reserve facility that became an active-duty installation during World War II.
In 1930, the airport was officially christened "Lambert–St. Louis Municipal Airport" by Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd. The first terminal building opened in 1933, and within the decade, the airport was served by Robertson Air Lines, Marquette Airlines, Eastern Air Lines, and Transcontinental & Western Air (later renamed TWA).
In August 1942, voters passed a $4.5 million bond issue to expand the airport by and build a new terminal.
During World War II, the airport became a manufacturing base for the McDonnell Aircraft Corporation (later McDonnell Douglas, now Boeing) and Curtiss-Wright.
After World War II: expansion, Ozark Air Lines hub
After the war, NAS St. Louis reverted to a reserve installation, supporting carrier-based fighters and land-based patrol aircraft. When it closed in 1958, most of its facilities were acquired by the Missouri Air National Guard and became "Lambert Field Air National Guard Base." Some other facilities were retained by non-flying activities of the Naval Reserve and Marine Corps Reserve, while the rest was redeveloped to expand airline operations at the airport.
Ozark Air Lines began operations at the airport in 1950.
To handle increasing passenger traffic, Minoru Yamasaki was commissioned to design a new terminal, which began construction in 1953. Completed in 1956 at a total cost of $7.2 million, the three-domed design preceded TWA terminal at John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) in New York City. A fourth dome was added in 1965 following the passage of a $200 million airport revenue bond.
The April 1957 Official Airline Guide shows 44 weekday TWA departures; American, 24; Delta, 16; Ozark, 14; Eastern, 13; Braniff, 6 and Central, 2. The first scheduled jet was a TWA 707 to New York on July 21, 1959.St Louis Post-Dispatch July 22, 1959, p3
In 1971, the airport became "Lambert–St. Louis International Airport."
In the 1970s, St. Louis city officials proposed to replace Lambert with a new airport in suburban Illinois. After Missouri residents rejected that, Lambert in 1977 received a $290-million expansion that lengthened the runways, increased the number of gates to 81, and boosted its capacity by half. (In 1997, MidAmerica St. Louis Airport would open in Mascoutah, Illinois, far from the site proposed in the 1970s.) Concourse A and Concourse C were rebuilt into bi-level structures with jet bridges as part of a $25 million project in the mid-1970s designed by Sverdrup. The other concourses were demolished. Construction began in the spring of 1976 and was completed in September 1977. A $20 million, extension of Concourse C for TWA and a $46 million, Concourse D for Ozark Air Lines (also designed by Sverdrup) were completed in December 1982.
Ozark established its only hub at Lambert in the late 1950s. The airline grew rapidly, going from 36 million revenue passenger miles in 1955, to 229 million revenue passenger miles in 1965. The jet age came to Ozark in 1966 with the Douglas DC-9-10 and its network expanded to Denver, Indianapolis, Louisville, Washington, D.C., New York City, Miami, Tampa, and Orlando. With the addition of jets, Ozark began its fastest period of growth, jumping to 653 million revenue passenger miles in 1970 and 936 million revenue passenger miles in 1975;Handbook of Airline Statistics (biannual CAB publication) Ozark soon faced heavy competition in TWA's new hub at Lambert.
In 1979, the year after airline deregulation, STL's dominant carriers were TWA (36 routes) and Ozark (25), followed by American (17) and Eastern (12). In April 1980, British Caledonian began a nonstop flight to London's Gatwick Airport using a Boeing 707. This was the airport's first transatlantic service. The company later partnered with Ozark so that the latter's network could feed the flights. British Caledonian severed the link in October 1984.
Trans World Airlines hub
After airline deregulation in 1978, airlines began to change their operations to a hub and spoke model. Trans World Airlines (TWA) was headquartered in New York City but its main base of employment was at Kansas City International Airport (MCI) and had large operations at Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD) as well as St. Louis. TWA deemed Kansas City's terminals unsuitable to serve as a primary hub. TWA reluctantly ruled out Chicago, as its Chicago operation was already losing $25 million a year under competition from American Airlines and United Airlines. This meant that St. Louis was the carrier's only viable option. TWA downsized in Chicago and built up in St. Louis, swapping three Chicago gates for five of American's St. Louis gates. By December 1982, St. Louis accounted for 20% of TWA's domestic capacity. Lambert's terminal was initially too small for this operation, and TWA was forced to use temporary terminals, mobile lounges and airstairs to handle the additional flights. Concourse D was completed in 1985. In April 1985, TWA began service from Lambert to London-Gatwick, Frankfurt, and Paris. It operated the flight to London with Boeing 747s and the ones to Paris and Frankfurt with 767s.
TWA's hub grew again in 1986 when the airline bought Ozark Air Lines, which operated its hub from Lambert's B, C, and D concourses. In 1985, TWA had accounted for 56.6% of boardings at STL while Ozark accounted for 26.3%, so the merged carriers controlled over 80% of the traffic.Fare and Service Changes at St. Louis Since the TWA-Ozark Merger , United States General Accounting Office. September 21, 1988. Retrieved July 27, 2013. The carriers were merged on October 26, 1986, at which time TWA served STL with nonstop service to 84 cities, an increase from 80 cities served by TWA and/or Ozark in 1985, before the merger.
Lambert again grew in importance for TWA after the airline declared bankruptcy in 1992 and the following year moved its headquarters to St. Louis from Mount Kisco, New York. TWA increased the number of cities served and started routing more connecting passengers through its hub at Lambert. The total number of passengers departing Lambert jumped almost 20% in a year, from 19.9 million passengers in 1993 to 23.4 million in 1994. Growth continued, to 27.3 million by 1997 and the airport's all-time peak of 30.6 million in 2000.
By September 1999, Lambert was TWA's main hub, with 103 destinations served by 515 daily flights: 352 on TWA mainline aircraft and 163 on Trans World Express flights operated by its commuter airline partners. Lambert became the eighth-busiest U.S. airport by flights. Congestion caused delays during peak hours and was exacerbated when bad weather reduced the number of usable runways from three to one, and traffic projections made in the 1980s and 1990s predicted enough growth to strain the airport and the national air traffic system. As a result, city leaders decided to build a runway, dubbed Runway 11/29, parallel to the two larger existing runways. At $1.1 billion, it was the costliest public works program in St. Louis history. It required moving seven major roads and destroying about 2,000 homes, six churches, and four schools in Bridgeton. Work began in 1998 and continued even as traffic at the airport declined after the 9/11 attacks, the collapse of TWA and its subsequent purchase by American, and American's flight reductions several years later.
American Airlines and hub closure
As TWA entered the new millennium, its financial condition deteriorated; it was purchased by American Airlines in April 2001. The last day of operations for TWA was December 1, 2001, including a ceremonial last flight to TWA's original and historic hometown of Kansas City before returning to St. Louis one final time. The following day, TWA was officially absorbed into American Airlines. The plan for Lambert was to become a reliever hub for the existing American hubs at Chicago–O'Hare and Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW). American was looking at something strategic with its new St. Louis hub to potentially offload some of the pressure on O'Hare as well as provide a significant boost to the airline's east/west connectivity.