Qualla: Norfolk International Airport

Norfolk International Airport: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit PghPhxNfk, CC BY-SA 3.0. In 1929, a World War I veteran pilot named Ben Epstein parked airplanes on a Norfolk field off Granby Street and called it an airport. Families showed up in their Sunday clothes to board a ten-passenger Fokker Trimotor for the special-occasion novelty of flight. The Navy ran them off in 1932 because Granby Street was uncomfortably close to Norfolk Naval Air Station. The Great Depression then shut down commercial aviation in the city for five straight years. When Norfolk Municipal Airport finally opened in 1938, the city built it on the fairways of a defunct golf course. The first runway was 3,500 feet of grass and crushed shell, and almost a century later that airport, now called Norfolk International, is still working out where to put everything.

Image: PghPhxNfk | CC BY-SA 3.0

Norfolk International Airport: Truxton Manor

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Joey Genco, CC BY-SA 4.0. Truxton Manor Golf Course closed in the 1930s, victim of the Depression and the city's quiet bet that aviation was the future. The terminal that opened in 1940 was modest. Then came World War II, the Navy expansion, the postwar boom in air travel, and the steady rebuilding that t...

Image: Joey Genco | CC BY-SA 4.0

Norfolk International Airport: The Botanical Garden Next Door

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Joey Genco, CC BY-SA 4.0. Norfolk Botanical Garden, opened in 1939, shares a fence line with the airport. The garden is one of the great public landscapes of the Tidewater, 175 acres of azaleas and camellias and bald cypress along Lake Whitehurst, and for nearly a century it has been the green neighbor of...

Image: Joey Genco | CC BY-SA 4.0

Norfolk International Airport: Cargo and Concourses

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Joey Genco, CC BY-SA 4.0. About 70 million pounds of air cargo move through ORF every year, in and out of 88,000 square feet of terminal space with direct plane-to-warehouse ramp access. The passenger numbers are bigger. Delta runs about 17 percent of the market, then Southwest, then American, then United...

Image: Joey Genco | CC BY-SA 4.0

Norfolk International Airport: A Field in Transition

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Joey Genco, CC BY-SA 4.0. More than a billion dollars in capital projects is reshaping the airport. The main runway is being rehabilitated. The Sky Bridge moving walkway is being reinstalled. A new unified ticketing hall, a rental-car center, an expanded Concourse A, a Customs and Border Protection facili...

Image: Joey Genco | CC BY-SA 4.0

Norfolk International Airport: From the Air

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit DearEdward from New York, NY, USA, CC BY 2.0. From the cockpit on approach, Norfolk International is easy to spot. The runway points northeast-southwest across the flat coastal plain. Lake Whitehurst gleams to the west. The garden's tree canopy sprawls to the south. Beyond the field, downtown Norfolk's small cluster of tower...

Image: DearEdward from New York, NY, USA | CC BY 2.0