Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport (IATA: MSP, ICAO: KMSP) is the largest and busiest airport in the five-state upper Midwestern region of Minnesota, Iowa, South Dakota, North Dakota, and Wisconsin. In terms of passengers, Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport is the twelfth largest in the United States (2006), and nineteenth largest airport in the world (2005). It straddles the southern border of the cities of Saint Paul, Minnesota and Minneapolis, Minnesota, but is mostly located in the Census-designated place of Fort Snelling, Minnesota. The terminal exits of the airport are minutes away from the Mall of America; careful flight pattern planning ensures that aircraft never fly over the mall at low altitude. It is a major hub for Northwest Airlines, Champion Air, Sun Country Airlines, and Northwest's Airlink partners Compass Airlines, Mesaba Airlines, Pinnacle Airlines, with only Mesaba is headquartered nearby. Compass is headquatered in Virginia and Pinnacle is headquatered in Tennessee. Both Northwest accounts for more than 80% of the airport's passenger traffic. It is operated by the Metropolitan Airports Commission, which also handles operation of six smaller airports in the region.

The airport first came into being when several local groups came together to take control of a former speedway, giving the airport its original name, Speedway Field. Soon after, in 1921, the airport was renamed Wold-Chamberlain Field for the World War I pilots Ernest Groves Wold and Cyrus Foss Chamberlain. In 1944, the site was renamed to Minneapolis-St. Paul Metropolitan Airport/Wold-Chamberlain Field, with "International" replacing "Metropolitan" four years later. Today, it is very rare to see the Wold-Chamberlain portion of the name used anywhere.

[Source: Wikipedia]

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