Boise Airport (Boise Air Terminal or Gowen Field) is a joint civil-military airport in the western United States in Idaho, south of downtown Boise in Ada County. The airport is operated by the city of Boise Department of Aviation, overseen by an airport commission. Boise Airport is the busiest airport in the state with more than 5.2 million passengers serviced in 2025. Boise Airport services roughly ten times as many passengers as the next busiest airport at Idaho Falls. In 2020 it serviced more passenger flights than all other Idaho airports combined.
Boise is a landing rights airfield requiring international general aviation flights to receive permission from a Customs and Border Protection officer before landing.
In addition to being a commercial and general aviation airport, Boise also functions concurrently as a USAF military facility as used by the 124th Fighter Wing (124 FW) of the Idaho Air National Guard on the Gowen Field Air National Guard Base portion of the airport. The 124 FW operates the A-10 Thunderbolt II aircraft.
The National Interagency Fire Center is based in the city of Boise and the Boise Airport is used for logistical support. The United States Forest Service (USFS) also uses Boise Airport as a base for aerial firefighting air tankers during the wildfire season.
Boise Airport enplaned 2,248,435 passengers in 2022, an increase of 24% vs. 2021 when 1,806,838 passengers were enplaned.
Terminals and development Boise Airport currently has one terminal with two concourses and serves eight airlines. The terminal is a three-story building with four baggage carousels, rental car counters on the ground floor, all ticketing counters, a consolidated security checkpoint including TSA PreCheck and CLEAR Security, offices, and fast-food outlets.
The two concourses have 24 gates and 13 jet bridges. Concourse B has 13 gates and 11 jet bridges (with one jet bridge serving each of B21 a/b and B22 a/b). Airline gate assignments are broken down as follows: B10, B11, B21 a/b (United), B15, B17 (Southwest), B14, B16, B19 (Common Use), B18 (American), B20, B22 a/b (Delta). The common-use gates are used as follows: B14 (Delta), B16 (American, Frontier), B19 (Allegiant, Southwest, Sun Country). Concourse C serves Alaska Airlines and has 11 gates; however, only gates C8a and C12 are equipped with jet bridges, with the rest having covered walkways.
In 2016, Boise Airport released a new master plan outlining their short, medium, and long-term plans. Each of these terms would mark different stages of the airport's growth and renewal, with the largest projects being three new parking garages, upgrades to Concourse B, and a new Concourse A.
Concourse A
The new Concourse A will sit on the other side of the main terminal from concourses B and C in an existing rental car parking lot. It is scheduled to have ten new gates, all equipped with jet bridges and able to handle narrow-body aircraft. Plans call for one of the new gates to be equipped to handle wide bodied aircraft, five equipped for narrowbody aircraft, and four equipped for regional jets up to an A220. Phase 1 of the new concourse is scheduled to begin construction in 2027 and will include six gates, three for mainline aircraft and three for regional aircraft. The makeup of Phases 2 and 3 would depend on the needs of the airport and have not been determined yet.
Parking garages
Increasing passenger traffic at BOI requires the addition of parking. To this end, the airport is building three new parking garages. One will be a public garage for passengers with 940 spaces. This will be built on an existing surface lot. The other two garages, an employee garage and a rental car center garage, are being relocated to make room for Concourse A. The new employee garage will have 680 spaces and the rental car garage will have 880 spaces. The airport has begun construction on its first two of the three parking garages. In late January 2022, it broke ground on the construction for the new employee parking garage after several delays, and its new public parking garage expansion. Both these projects plan to be finished by the end of 2023. The airport also plans to break ground on a new 2 part rental car garage in 2024, this will make room for the new Concourse A.
The new seven story consolidated rent a car garage (CONRAC) opened on September 1, 2026 with 10 different brands on 6 of the 7 floors. The facility includes Avis, Budget (Level 5/6) Payless (Level 6), Hertz, Dollar, Thrifty (Level 4), Sixt (Level 3), Enterprise, Alamo (Level 2), and National (Level 1).
History Boise's first municipal airport, Booth Field, was built in 1926 on a gravel bed near the south bank of the Boise River, now the campus of Boise State University. The first commercial airmail flight in the United States passed through this airfield on April 26, 1926, carried by Varney Airlines. Varney began operating out of Boise in 1933, later merging with National Air Transport to become United Airlines. Since United traces its roots to Varney, United is recognized as the airline that has operated the longest out of Boise, years as of . Less than four months after his historic transatlantic flight, the airfield hosted Charles Lindbergh and the Spirit of St. Louis
The current airport has its origins in 1936 when Boise began buying and leasing land for the airport. By 1938, Boise had the longest runway in the United States at , built as a Works Progress Administration (WPA) project under sponsorship of the city. The steel hangar for Varney Airlines was moved to the present field in 1939. As aircraft grew the hangar was no longer big enough and was converted into a passenger terminal. It was part of the modern terminal facility until the completion of a new terminal in 2004.
During World War II, the U.S. Army Air Forces leased the field for use as a training base for B-17 Flying Fortress and B-24 Liberator bomber crews. More than six thousand men were stationed there during the war.
The field was named Gowen Field in 1941 on July 23, after 1st Lt Paul R. Gowen. Born and raised in Caldwell, he attended the University of Idaho for two years, then obtained an appointment to West Point in 1929, and graduated ninth in his class in 1933. While piloting a twin-engine B-10 bomber in the Army Air Corps, Gowen was killed instantly in a crash in Panama in July 1938. The right engine failed shortly after take-off from Albrook Field, near Panama City. The other two crew members, navigator and radio operator, survived and crawled from the wreckage with burns.
After the war the part of the field used by the Army Air Forces was returned to the city. The Idaho Air National Guard began leasing the airfield after the war and continues to do so.
Jet service The jet age arrived in Boise during the mid-1960s. In 1966, United Airlines was operating Boeing 727-100 jetliners into the airport with round trip routings of Boise (BOI)-Salt Lake City (SLC)-Chicago (O'Hare, ORD)-Boston (BOS) and Seattle (SEA)-Portland (PDX)-Boise (BOI)-Salt Lake City (SLC)-Denver (Stapleton, DEN)-Chicago (ORD)-New York (Newark, EWR).http://www.timetableimages.com , April 24, 1966, United Airlines system timetable United was also serving the airport with Douglas DC-6 and DC-6B propliners at this time. West Coast Airlines introduced Douglas DC-9-10 jet service during the late 1960s and in 1968 was operating round trip routings of Seattle (Boeing Field, BFI)-Portland (PDX)-Boise (BOI)-Salt Lake City (SLC) and Portland (PDX)-Seattle (BFI)-Boise (BOI)-Salt Lake City (SLC) West Coast was also serving Boise with Fairchild F-27 turboprops and Douglas DC-3 prop aircraft in 1968. The same year West Coast merged with Bonanza Air Lines and Pacific Air Lines to form Air West which was subsequently renamed Hughes Airwest which, in turn, continued to serve Boise with Douglas DC-9 (-10, -30) jets. In 1972, Hughes Airwest was operating non-stop DC-9 service from Boise to Portland and Salt Lake City and was also flying direct DC-9 service to Los Angeles (LAX), Las Vegas (LAS), Phoenix (PHX), San Diego (SAN), Burbank (BUR), Santa Ana (SNA), Spokane (GEG) and other regional destinations.http://www.departedflights.com , July 1, 1972, Hughes Airwest system timetable
By 1976, Hughes Airwest and United were still the only two airlines operating jet service into Boise according to the Official Airline Guide (OAG). United had also expanded its Boise service by this time and was operating nonstop flights with Boeing 727 (-100, -200) and larger Douglas DC-8 jetliners to Chicago (O'Hare), Denver (Stapleton), Portland, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, Seattle, Reno, and Spokane as well as direct, no change of plane jet service to New York (LaGuardia), Los Angeles, Boston, Washington, D.C. (National), San Diego, and Hartford, according to the Official Airline Guide (OAG).February 1, 1976, North American Edition Official Airline Guide, Boise flight schedules United and Hughes Airwest were operating all of their flights into Boise with jet aircraft at this time in 1976. Also according to the OAG, in early 1985 Cascade Airways was operating international service of a sorts into Boise with a direct flight once a week from Calgary via intermediate stops in Spokane and Lewiston, ID.Feb 15 Official Airline Guide (OAG), North American edition, Boise flight schedules & OAG Flight Itineraries section, Cascade Airways flight 693 routing
Following the federal Airline Deregulation Act of 1978, a number of air carriers operated jet service into the airport at different times over the years from the late 1970s through the 1990s. The following list of airlines is taken from OAG editions from 1979 to 1999:http://www.departedflights.com , Official Airline Guide (OAG) editions, November 15, 1979, through June 1, 1999, Boise flight schedules
Alaska Airlines (mainline jet service) America West Airlines Cascade Airways Continental Airlines Frontier Airlines (1950-1986) Horizon Air Morris Air Mountain West Airlines Northwest Airlines
Pacific Express Pacific Southwest Airlines (PSA) Republic Airlines (1979-1986) (acquired Hughes Airwest in 1980) Sunworld International Airways (operating as Sunworld Airlines) United Express operated by Air Wisconsin US Airways Western Airlines Wien Air Alaska
Between 2001 and 2005, Boise Airport was remodeled with a new terminal and an elevated roadway for departures, constructed in two phases. Phase 1 considered amenities such as baggage claim, lobby, and food and beverage concession, which were completed in 2003. Phase 2 dealt with security checkpoints and a new concourse (Concourse C) and the remodeling of Concourse B, which were completed in 2005.
The Boise Airport Passenger Terminal designed by CSHQA is a three-story, steel-framed state-of-the-art aviation facility. Curvilinear, steel trusses create the undulating ceiling plane of the ticket lobby and define the signature profile of the building. The terminal has garnered national attention for the beauty of its design and is considered a prototypical post-9/11 facility.CSHQA Architecture, Engineering, Planning, Boise Idaho . Cshqa.com.
The Boise Airport was fourth in passenger satisfaction in the J.D. Power and Associates 2004 Global Airport Satisfaction Index Study. Power no longer publishes a global listing, and the airport was not listed in the 2017 North American ranking.