Topeka Regional Airport , formerly known as Forbes Field, is a joint civil-military public

airport An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial Aviation, air transport. They usually consist of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surf ...

owned by the Metropolitan Topeka Airport Authority in Shawnee County, Kansas, seven miles south of downtown Topeka, the

capital city A capital city, or just capital, is the municipality holding primary status in a country, state (polity), state, province, department (administrative division), department, or other administrative division, subnational division, usually as its ...

Kansas Kansas ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to the west. Kansas is named a ...

. The

National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems The National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems (NPIAS) is an inventory of U.S. aviation infrastructure assets. With the Airport and Airway Improvement Act of September 3, 1982, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) was required to develop a ...

for 2011–2015 called it a ''

general aviation General aviation (GA) is defined by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) as all civil aviation aircraft operations except for commercial air transport or aerial work, which is defined as specialized aviation services for other ...

'' airport. Topeka Regional Airport is used by the

University of Kansas The University of Kansas (KU) is a public research university with its main campus in Lawrence, Kansas, United States. Two branch campuses are in the Kansas City metropolitan area on the Kansas side: the university's medical school and hospital ...

(KU) for charter flights for its athletic teams and by schools visiting the KU campus in Lawrence, which is east of the airport via the Kansas Turnpike. ( Kansas City International Airport is from KU.) The airport had scheduled airline service by multiple carriers until 2014.

Federal Aviation Administration The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is a Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government agency within the United States Department of Transportation, U.S. Department of Transportation that regulates civil aviation in t ...

records say the airport had 11,573 passenger boardings (enplanements) in

calendar year A calendar year begins on the New Year's Day of the given calendar system and ends on the day before the following New Year's Day, and thus consists of a whole number of days. The Gregorian calendar year, which is in use as civil calendar in ...

2019.

History

Topeka Regional Airport (formerly Forbes Field) is on the site of the Topeka Army Air Field, later Forbes Air Force Base, a former

Strategic Air Command Strategic Air Command (SAC) was a United States Department of Defense Specified Command and a United States Air Force (USAF) Major Command responsible for command and control of the strategic bomber and intercontinental ballistic missile compon ...

(SAC) facility that was transferred to

Tactical Air Command Tactical Air Command (TAC) is an inactive United States Air Force organization. It was a List of Major Commands of the United States Air Force, Major Command of the United States Air Force, established on 21 March 1946 and headquartered at Lang ...

in 1964 (while retaining SAC-gained tenants). Forbes AFB closed in 1973 but retained a

USAF The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Air force, air service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is one of the six United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Tracing its ori ...

presence in the form of a SAC-gained

Air National Guard The Air National Guard (ANG), also known as the Air Guard, is a Reserve components of the United States Armed Forces, federal military reserve force of the United States Air Force, as well as the air militia (United States), militia of each U.S. ...

installation that was previously a tenant command at Forbes AFB. With the departure of active duty Regular Air Force personnel and units, the remaining military activity was named Forbes Air National Guard Base. Most of the former base administrative area is now used for offices and an industrial park. The 190th Air Refueling Wing (190 ARW) of the Kansas Air National Guard continues to part of the airport as a military cantonment area and

installation known as Forbes Field Air National Guard Base; the wing currently flies and maintains the Boeing KC-135R Stratotanker. From 1942 to 1973 the following Air Force components supervised the airfield: * Second Air Force, 1942–1945 * Continental Air Forces, 1945–1947 *

Air Materiel Command Air Materiel Command (AMC) was a United States Army Air Forces and United States Air Force command. Its headquarters was located at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. In 1961, the command was redesignated the Air Force Logistics Command ...

, 1947–1948; 1949–1951 (In inactive status) *

, 1948–1949; 1951–1964 *

, 1964–1973 *

, 1973 – present In April 1976, except for areas retained by the Air National Guard, most of the former Forbes Air Force Base was turned over to the city of Topeka and Shawnee County. During this transition, all airline flights moved from the Philip Billard Municipal Airport to the newly-established Forbes Field. On June 1, 1976, the original Frontier Airlines (1950-1986) scheduled the first jet out of Forbes Field, a Boeing 737-200. Shortly afterward, the Combat Air Museum was established on the airport. In 1981 a bond to build a new air terminal was rejected, but approved in 1982. The $5 million terminal was completed in 1985. The terminal has five airline ticket counters and two rental car counters. Currently Hertz is the only rental car company at FOE. There is one baggage claim carousel. Several charter and military flights use the terminal today. In 2012 the MTAA Board of Directors renamed the facility to Topeka Regional Airport and Business Center, maintaining the name of the airfield as Forbes Field. Topeka Regional Airport is currently the home of the Kansas Air National Guard's 190th Air Refueling Wing and the 1st Battalion, 108th Aviation Regiment, Kansas Army National Guard.

Historical airline service

Airline service began in the early 1930s by a small mail carrier United States Airways which flew a route between Denver and Kansas City. Flights made stops in Goodland, Salina, and Topeka, Kansas, using a five-passenger

Metal Aircraft Flamingo The Metal Aircraft Flamingo was a monoplane produced in Cincinnati, Ohio by the Metal Aircraft Corporation in the 1930s. Design and development The Metal Aircraft Corporation purchased the design from the Halpin Development Co. and unveiled it a ...

. In the early 1940s, three new airlines began service, flying

Douglas DC-3 The Douglas DC-3 is a propeller-driven airliner manufactured by the Douglas Aircraft Company, which had a lasting effect on the airline industry in the 1930s to 1940s and World War II. It was developed as a larger, improved 14-bed sleeper ...

aircraft through the Philip Billard Municipal Airport near downtown Topeka.

Trans World Airlines Trans World Airlines (TWA) was a major airline in the United States that operated from 1930 until it was acquired by American Airlines in 2001. It was formed as Transcontinental & Western Air to operate a route from New York City to Los Angeles ...

( TWA), added Topeka as one of many stops on the carriers' transcontinental route between Los Angeles and New York. Topeka was a stop between Wichita and Kansas City. The carrier later upgraded to Martin 4-0-4 aircraft. Braniff International Airways added Topeka as one of many stops on their mainline route between Chicago and Houston. Topeka was also a stop between Kansas City and Wichita.

Continental Airlines Continental Airlines (simply known as Continental) was a major airline in the United States that operated from 1934 until it merged with United Airlines in 2012. It had ownership interests and brand partnerships with several carriers. Continen ...

added Topeka as a stop on a route between Denver and Kansas City which also included a stop at Salina, Kansas.

Ozark Airlines Ozark Air Lines was a local service carrier (originally known as a feeder airline) in the United States that operated from 1950 until 1986, when it was purchased by Trans World Airlines (TWA). Ozark got a second chance to be an airline when t ...

also briefly served Topeka in the early 1950s with a route between Kansas City and Tulsa that stopped in Topeka and two other cities. Ozark and Braniff ended service in 1954, TWA ended in 1958 and Continental ended by 1960. Central Airlines began service in 1958 with DC-3s by picking up the routes to Kansas City and Wichita formerly operated by TWA and Braniff. The carrier then picked up Continental's route to Denver by 1960 using a

Convair 240 The Convair CV-240 is an American airliner that Convair manufactured from 1947 to 1954, initially as a possible replacement for the ubiquitous Douglas DC-3. Featuring a more modern design with cabin pressurization, the 240 series made some inroa ...

and became the only airline at Topeka. Central's service continued until the company merged with the original

Frontier Airlines Frontier Airlines, Inc. is a major American ultra low-cost airline headquartered in Denver, Colorado. It operates flights to over 120 destinations in the United States, Caribbean, Mexico and Central America, and employs more than 5,000 staff. ...

in 1967. Frontier then served Topeka using 50-seat Convair 580 aircraft with nonstop flights to Kansas City as well as multi stop flights to Denver, St. Louis, and Wichita. Several air taxi and commuter airlines provided shuttle flights to Kansas City in the late 1960s and early 1970s, including Trans-Mo Airlines, Allen Aviation, Air Associates Inc., and Shawnee Air Commuter. After moving to the current Forbes Field in 1976, Topeka then saw multiple new carriers, some providing jet service:

upgraded their service with Boeing 737-200 jets direct to Kansas City, Denver, and Wichita, and added flights to Chicago O'hare International Airport with a stop in Lincoln, Nebraska. In the early 1980s, Frontier also operated nonstop jets to Manhattan, KS, and Joplin, MO. The carrier introduced the McDonnell Douglas MD80 jet to Topeka shortly before ending all service in 1984. Capitol Air Service began shuttle flights to Kansas City, Manhattan, and Salina, Kansas, around 1970. From 1987 through 1989, the carrier had a codeshare agreement with the new

Braniff Braniff Airways, Inc., operated as Braniff International Airways from 1948 until 1965, and then Braniff International from 1965 until the cessation of air operations, was an American airline that operated from 1928 until 1982 and continues to ...

Airways and operated as Braniff Express. Capitol Air flew

Cessna 402 The Cessna 401 and 402 are a series of 6 to 10 seat, light twin-piston engine aircraft.Montgomery, MR & Gerald Foster: ''A Field Guide to Airplanes, Second Edition'', page 108. Houghton Mifflin Company, 1992. All seats are easily removable so ...

and

de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter The de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter is a Canadian STOL (Short Takeoff and Landing) utility aircraft developed by de Havilland Canada in the mid-1960s and still in production today. Built by De Havilland Canada from 1965 to 1988, Viking ...

aircraft and shut down about the time of the Braniff collapse in 1989. Trans Central Airlines provided commuter flights to Oklahoma City and onto Dallas/Fort Worth in 1981 and 1982 using

Fairchild Swearingen Metroliner The Fairchild Swearingen Metroliner (previously the Swearingen Metro and later Fairchild Aerospace Metro) is a 19-seat, Cabin pressurization, pressurized, twin-turboprop airliner first produced by Sino Swearingen Aircraft Corporation, Swearingen ...

aircraft. The original Midway Airlines, provided Douglas DC-9-10 jet service to Chicago Midway International Airport with a stop in Kansas City from 1982 through 1985. Up to three flights per day were operated.

United Airlines United Airlines, Inc. is a Major airlines of the United States, major airline in the United States headquartered in Chicago, Chicago, Illinois that operates an extensive domestic and international route network across the United States and six ...

provided mainline jet service in 1986 and 1987 with three daily flights to the carrier's hub at Denver, making one stop at Kansas City or Wichita, and one daily flight to Chicago O'Hare making one stop in Lincoln.

Boeing 727 The Boeing 727 is an American Narrow-body aircraft, narrow-body airliner that was developed and produced by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. After the heavier Boeing 707, 707 quad-jet was introduced in 1958, Boeing addressed the demand for shorter ...

and

Boeing 737 The Boeing 737 is an American narrow-body aircraft, narrow-body aircraft produced by Boeing at its Boeing Renton Factory, Renton factory in Washington (state), Washington. Developed to supplement the Boeing 727 on short and thin routes, the t ...

jets were used. Air Midwest began commuter flights to Kansas City in 1981 using

II aircraft. Air Midwest went on to operate several codeshare services with major airlines, the first being with

Eastern Airlines Eastern Air Lines (also colloquially known as Eastern) was a major airline in the United States that operated from 1926 to 1991. Before its dissolution, it was headquartered at Miami International Airport in an unincorporated area of Miami-Dade ...

in 1985. Air Midwest operated as Eastern Express feeding Eastern's hub at Kansas City until 1988 when Eastern dismantled the Kansas City hub operation. By then Braniff had established a hub at Kansas City and Air Midwest became a Braniff Express feeder carrier along with Capitol Air. Within a year Braniff had shut down and Air Midwest reverted to operating under their own branding at Kansas City. Air Midwest also had codeshare agreements with other major airlines, including one with TWA at that carrier's hub in St. Louis. In late 1989, Air Midwest began nonstop flights from Topeka to St. Louis operating as

Trans World Express Trans World Express (TWE) was the fully owned and certified regional carrier for Trans World Airlines ( TWA) and an airline trademark name for TWA's corporation. * Trans World Express - The formerly independent regional airline known as Ransom ...

while discontinuing its flights to Kansas City. British Aerospace Jetstream 31 aircraft were used. This service ended in early 1991 as Air Midwest established yet another codeshare agreement at Kansas City with

US Airways US Airways was a major airline in the United States. It was originally founded in History of aviation in Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh as a mail delivery airline called All American Aviation, which soon became a commercial passenger airline. In 1953, it ...

. Flights to Kansas City were restored, now as

US Airways Express US Airways Express was the brand name for the regional affiliate of US Airways, under which a number of individually owned commuter air carriers and regional airlines operate short and medium haul routes. This code sharing service was previously ...

using

Beechcraft 1900 The Beechcraft 1900 is a U.S made twin-engine turboprop regional airliner manufactured by Beechcraft. It is also used as a freight aircraft and corporate transport, and by several governmental and military organizations. With customers favoring ...

aircraft. This service was long term and continued until Air Midwest ended Topeka service in November, 2003. Air Midwest had the only service at Topeka from 1989 through 2003. The 1980s were the boom years for traffic at Forbes Field as the airport handled up to 180,000 passengers per year. By the 1990s however, the airport saw a dramatic drop in traffic and scheduled passenger service became subsidized by the

Essential Air Service Essential Air Service (EAS) is a U.S. government program enacted to guarantee that small communities in the United States, which had been served by certificated airlines prior to deregulation in 1978, maintain commercial service. Its aim is ...

program. This subsidized service ended in May, 2003, due to federal law prohibiting a subsidy over $200 per passenger for airports within 210 miles of the nearest large or medium hub airport ( Kansas City International Airport, a medium hub, is 71 miles away). This caused the final carrier, Air Midwest dba US Airways Express, to end service. After three years with no service,

Allegiant Air Allegiant Air is an American ultra low-cost carrier, ultra-low cost airline headquartered in Las Vegas, Nevada. The airline focuses on serving leisure traffic from small and medium-sized cities which it considers to be underserved, using an ult ...

came to Topeka in 2006 with nonstop jet flights to

Las Vegas Las Vegas, colloquially referred to as Vegas, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and the county seat of Clark County. The Las Vegas Valley metropolitan area is the largest within the greater Mojave Desert, and second-l ...

on two days per week. The carrier used McDonnell Douglas MD80s but ended service on July 30, 2007. An additional effort to revive scheduled airline service was made when

United Express United Express is a regional airline network that supports United Airlines operations, primarily by serving smaller cities and connecting traffic to United's main hubs. Representing six percent of United's total capacity for 2024, United Express ...

, operated by ExpressJet, began flights on January 7, 2014, with two daily Embraer-145 regional jets nonstop to Chicago's

O'Hare International Airport Chicago O'Hare International Airport is the primary international airport serving Chicago, Illinois, United States, located on the city's Northwest Side, approximately northwest of the Chicago Loop, Loop business district. The airport is ope ...

. The service only lasted eight months however and ceased on September 2, 2014.

Facilities

Topeka Regional Airport covers 2,854

acre The acre ( ) is a Unit of measurement, unit of land area used in the Imperial units, British imperial and the United States customary units#Area, United States customary systems. It is traditionally defined as the area of one Chain (unit), ch ...

s (1,155 ha) at an

elevation The elevation of a geographic location (geography), ''location'' is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational equipotenti ...

of 1,078 feet (329 m) above

mean sea level A mean is a quantity representing the "center" of a collection of numbers and is intermediate to the extreme values of the set of numbers. There are several kinds of means (or "measures of central tendency") in mathematics, especially in statist ...

. It has two concrete

runway In aviation, a runway is an elongated, rectangular surface designed for the landing and takeoff of an aircraft. Runways may be a human-made surface (often asphalt concrete, asphalt, concrete, or a mixture of both) or a natural surface (sod, ...

s: 13/31 is 12,803 by 200 feet (3,902 x 61 m) and 3/21 is 7,001 by 150 feet (2,134 x 46 m). In the year ending October 31, 2021, the airport had 30,086 aircraft operations, average 82 per day: 60% military, 38%

, 1%

air taxi An air taxi is a small commercial aircraft that makes short flights on demand. History The concept of air taxis existed as early as the 1910s. This concept goes back as early as 1917 with Glenn Curtiss’ prototype, the auto-plane. Furthermor ...

, and <1% airline. 33 aircraft were then based at this airport: 7 single-engine, 1 multi-engine, 6 jet, 1 helicopter, and 18 military.

Airlines and destinations

The airport has had no airline service since September 2, 2014.Official Airline Guide September 2014

References

Other sources

* Essential Air Service documents
Docket OST-1996-1352
from the U.S. Department of Transportation: *
Order 2000-7-35 (July 28, 2000)
tentatively re-selecting Air Midwest, Inc., d/b/a US Airways Express, to provide essential air service at Topeka, Kansas, for the two-year period ending December 31, 2001, at an annual subsidy rate totaling $722,199. *
Order 2001-8-13 (August 10, 2001)
tentatively re-selecting Air Midwest, Inc., d/b/a US Airways Express, to provide essential air service at Topeka, Kansas, for the two-year period beginning January 1, 2002, at an annual rate of $621,872. *
Order 2003-2-28 (February 28, 2003)
requests interested persons to show cause why we should not terminate subsidy for essential air service at Topeka, Kansas, and allow Air Midwest, Inc., d/b/a US Airways Express, to suspend service there as of May 1, 2003. *
Order 2003-4-16 (April 18, 2003)
terminates subsidy for essential air service at Topeka, Kansas, and allows Air Midwest, Inc., d/b/a US Airways Express, to suspend service as of May 1, 2003.

External links

Aerial image as of February 2002
from

USGS The United States Geological Survey (USGS), founded as the Geological Survey, is an government agency, agency of the United States Department of the Interior, U.S. Department of the Interior whose work spans the disciplines of biology, geograp ...

The National Map ''The National Map'' is a Collaboration, collaborative effort of the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and other federal, state, and local agencies to improve and deliver topographic information for the United States. The purpose of the eff ...

'' * * * {{US-airport, FOE Airports in Kansas Buildings and structures in Shawnee County, Kansas Former Essential Air Service airports 1976 establishments in Kansas