Topic summary
Baltimore/Washington International Airport
Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport (IATA: BWI, ICAO: KBWI, FAALID: BWI), commonly referred to as Baltimore/Washington International Airport or simply as BWI Airport, is an international airport in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, located 9 mi (14 km) south of downtown Baltimore and 30 miles (50 km) northeast of Washington, D.C. The airport is the 7th busiest in the Mid-Atlantic region of North America and is owned by the Maryland Aviation Administration.
BWI is one of three major airports that serve the Washington–Baltimore metropolitan area. Dulles International Airport (IAD), in Dulles, Virginia, and Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA), in Crystal City, Virginia, are the other two.
The airport serves as one of 13 U.S.-based operating bases for Southwest Airlines. In 2023, BWI recorded 12,849,636 passenger enplanements, making it the busiest airport in the Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area, ranked at #23 in passenger enplanements in the U.S., followed by Reagan National at number 24 and Dulles at 26.
In 2024, BWI ranked second in the Baltimore/Washington area with 27.06 million passengers served (slightly behind the 27.25 million passengers served at Dulles), just missing the record set in 2019.
Originally opened as Friendship International Airport, the airport was named in 2005 in honor of Thurgood Marshall, a Baltimore native and the first African American to serve as a U.S. Supreme Court justice.