Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport is a major international airport serving Detroit and the surrounding metropolitan area, in the U.S. state of Michigan. Operated by the Wayne County Airport Authority, it is located approximately southwest of Detroit city center, in Romulus, a suburb of Detroit. It is by far Michigan's busiest airport, with about 8 times as many enplanements and deplanements as the next busiest, Gerald R. Ford International Airport in Grand Rapids, and more than all other airports in the state combined.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems for 2017–2021 categorized it as a large hub primary commercial service facility. The airport covers of land. FAA data effective March 19, 2026.
The airport is the second-largest hub for Delta Air Lines. The airport has service to 30 international destinations and to 43 states across the United States. The airport has six runways, two terminals, and 129 in-service gates. Detroit Metropolitan Airport has maintenance facilities capable of servicing and repairing aircraft as large as the Boeing 747-400.
Metro Airport serves the metropolitan Detroit area; the Toledo, Ohio, area about south; the Ann Arbor area to the west; Windsor, Ontario; and Southwestern Ontario in Canada. The airport serves over 140 destinations, and was named the best large U.S. airport in customer satisfaction by J.D. Power & Associates in 2010, 2019, and 2022.
History Wayne County began to plan an airport in the western townships of the county as early as 1927. The following year, the county board of commissioners issued a $2 million bond to fund the purchase of of land at the corner of Middlebelt and Wick roads, the northeastern boundary of today's airport. Construction was completed in 1929, and the first landing was on February 22, 1930; Wayne County Airport was dedicated on September 4, 1930. That year, Thompson Aeronautical Corporation, a forerunner of American Airlines, began service from the airport. From 1931 until 1945, the airport hosted Michigan Air National Guard operations gained by the United States Army Air Forces. It was named Romulus Field during the war; it was then all east of Merriman Road and north of Goddard Road. The intersection of the two runways is still visible at .
Wayne County expanded the airport to become Detroit's primary airport. It renamed it Detroit-Wayne Major Airport in 1947, and in the next three years expanded threefold as three more runways were built. In 1949 the airport added runways 3L/21R and 9L/27R, followed by runway 4R/22L in 1950. In 1946-47 most airline traffic moved from the cramped Detroit City Airport (now Coleman A. Young International Airport) northeast of downtown Detroit to Willow Run Airport over west of the city, and west of Wayne County Airport.
Pan American Airways (1954) and British Overseas Airways Corporation (1956) were the first passenger airlines at Detroit-Wayne Major. In the April 1957 Official Airline Guide they were the only passenger airlines: three Pan Am DC-7Cs each week FRA–LHR–SNN–DTW–ORD and back, and one BOAC DC-7C each week LHR–PIK–YUL–DTW–ORD and back (skipping YUL on the return flight).
Aerial photographs of DTW from 1949 and 1956 show the airport's expansion. In 1958 the Civil Aviation Administration—now the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)—announced the inclusion of Detroit-Wayne in the first group of American airports to receive new long-range radar equipment, enabling the airport to become the first inland airport in the United States certified for jet airliners. Also, in 1958, airport management completed the Leroy C. Smith (South) Terminal and gave the airport its present name.
American Airlines moved from Willow Run to Detroit-Wayne in October 1958, followed by Northwest, Allegheny, and Delta in the next few months; the other airlines stayed at Willow Run until 1966.
Northwest's flights to Minneapolis were DTW's only nonstops west beyond Chicago and Milwaukee until 1966. The first scheduled jets were Delta DC-8s to Miami in late 1959. The North Terminal (later renamed the James M. Davey Terminal) opened in 1966, which was located on the current site of the Evans Terminal. A third terminal, the Michael Berry International Terminal, opened in 1974. The last of its original three parallel runways (3R/21L) was completed in 1976; a new parallel crosswind runway (9R/27L) opened in 1993.
Republic Airlines began hub operations in 1984, and its merger with Northwest Airlines in 1986 expanded the hub. The Northwest hub operated out of the Davey Terminal throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Transpacific flights began in 1987, with Northwest providing nonstop service to Tokyo–Narita. The last of Metro's six runways (4L/22R) was completed in December 2001 in preparation for the opening of the mile-long, 122-gate, $1.2 billion McNamara Terminal in the airport midfield in 2002. The airport remained a hub for Northwest Airlines until it merged with Delta Air Lines.
The present Runway 3L/21R has had four identifiers. When it opened in 1949, it was Runway 3/21. With the opening of the new west side Runway 3L/21R in 1950, the original 3/21 became 3R/21L. With the opening of the new east side Runway 3R/21L in 1976, it became 3C/21C. With the opening of Runway 4L/22R in December 2001 and the splitting of the field into two sectors (3/21 on the east and 4/22 on the west), Runway 3C/21C became Runway 3L/21R.
Detroit was a major hub for Northwest Airlines from 1986 to 2010; Northwest merged with Delta Air Lines, and Detroit became Delta's second-largest hub.
In April 2011 Lufthansa launched a unique curbside check-in and baggage check service for premium customers from DTW's North Terminal to Frankfurt and beyond. Lufthansa became the only airline allowing international customers departing from DTW to check their bags and receive a boarding pass at the curb, while DTW became Lufthansa's first North American gateway with this service.
Detroit's economy plunged in the Great Recession, causing airlines such as British Airways to drop flights to London–Heathrow and other airlines such as KLM and Virgin Atlantic to use codeshare flights through Delta Air Lines. The city has lost population, but Detroit Metropolitan Airport has since re-grown, and airlines are looking to expand or resume service. JetBlue began flights to Boston in February 2014. Spirit Airlines had grown at DTW, adding service to more East and West Coast cities. Spirit had increased its market share to over 10%, widening the gap as Metro Airport's second largest carrier.
Royal Jordanian was the first airline to schedule the Boeing 787 Dreamliner into Detroit, on December 1, 2014.
One of Delta Connection carriers, Compass Airlines chose to close its operating base in Detroit to move operations to the new Seattle hub in early 2015. Delta has replaced many of the existing Compass flights with mainline Delta flights to allow SkyWest Airlines and GoJet to open Detroit bases.
Beginning in January 2018, SMART began providing a direct connection from the airport to the Rosa Parks Transit Center in downtown Detroit via route 261, with stations at both the McNamara and Evans terminals.
On June 26, 2015, Spirit Airlines announced the construction of a new maintenance facility, saying it would bring $31.5 million and 82 jobs to the area. Spirit previously had a hangar that closed, forcing the airline to do maintenance at the gate with contract workers. With the new facility, which opened in May 2017, Spirit retained its operating base at Metro Airport.
In 2017, WOW Air announced service to Reykjavík on the Airbus A321. This marked the first ever entrance of a modern European low-cost carrier to DTW. In the summer of 2018, Reykjavík went from the 55th most traveled destination to the fifth due to this flight's popularity. Passengers could connect onwards in Reykjavík, boosting travel to European destinations. In March 2019, the airline ceased operations, leaving Metro Airport with no low-cost nonstop to Europe; the airport looked for replacement service to begin in 2020, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, that effort ceased until 2022, when Icelandair and Delta announced seasonal flights to Reykjavík starting in 2023.
Since the Great Recession of 2008, Southeast Michigan has gone through an economic and industrial resurgence leading to several new airlines and services including service by Icelandair, Sun Country Airlines, Turkish Airlines, and WestJet. In October 2021, Turkish Airlines announced the intent to serve Detroit. Service began on November 13, 2023. In February 2023, WestJet announced seasonal service to Calgary, later adding seasonal service to Vancouver and Halifax.
Facilities DTW has two passenger terminals, with a total of 151 gates.
McNamara Terminal
The Edward H. McNamara Terminal () is the larger of the two terminals, containing 122 gates between its three concourses, lettered A, B, and C. , the McNamara Terminal is served exclusively by Delta Air Lines, other members of the SkyTeam airline alliance, and WestJet.
Designed by SmithGroup and built by Hunt Construction Group, the McNamara Terminal opened on February 24, 2002, as the first major airport terminal in the U.S. to open after the September 11 attacks. It replaced the Davey Terminal as the primary base of Northwest Airlines in Detroit. Known during planning as the Midfield Terminal, the facility was named in honor of Edward H. McNamara, then the sitting county executive of Wayne County. It was developed in collaboration with Northwest to serve as its primary hub for international flights, and was prominently branded by the airline as the Northwest WorldGateway upon its opening.
McNamara Terminal's linear Concourse A houses 64 gates, and is roughly in length, ranking as the longest linear airport concourse in the U.S. and the second-longest in the world (behind Terminal 1 of Kansai International Airport in Japan). Moving walkways line the entire length of the concourse, as does the ExpressTram, an elevated automated people mover which quickly transports passengers between three stations within the concourse. Concourse A includes a variety of restaurants and retail stores, and four Delta Sky Club lounges. At the midpoint of the concourse is a large, laminar flow water feature designed by WET.
The smaller Concourses B and C, containing 17 and 41 gates respectively, run parallel to Concourse A, and combined are roughly long. They are primarily used for smaller aircraft, and feature jet bridges at all gates. They were expanded between 2004 and 2006. Concourses B and C also contain retail stores, restaurants, and a Delta Sky Club lounge. Concourses B and C are connected to the main terminal and Concourse A by the underground pedestrian Light Tunnel, which runs under the airport ramp. The tunnel features an elaborate multi-colored light show behind sculpted glass panels, synchronized with an original musical score composed by Victor Alexeeff. This installation, one of the first large-scale uses of color-changing LED lighting in the United States, was produced by Mills James Productions with glasswork by Foxfire Glass Works of Pontiac, Michigan.
McNamara Terminal prominently features signage in Japanese, as it serves a large number of travelers from Japan.