The airport is located in the International Plaza/Westshore district. International Plaza and Bay Street is an upscale mall that almost exclusively serves passengers arriving and departing from Tampa International Airport.
TPA opened on April 15, 1971, on the site of Drew Field Municipal Airport, which had taken over commercial flights from Peter O. Knight Airport in 1945. Passenger traffic increased dramatically during TPA's first two years of operation, and has steadily grown ever since, with a marked acceleration among low-cost carriers since the arrival of Southwest Airlines in 1997.
Terminal
Tampa International Airport has a satellite terminal configuration, and is also the first of it's kind in the world. There is one "landside" terminal where baggage and ticketing take place. The landside terminal is connected to the "airsides" where embarkment and disembarkment takes place. Each airside is connected to the landside terminal via a monorail. The airport has been designed to limit the distance travellers must walk before they reach a "rest" area such as a monorail, escalator or elevator.
Currently there are four airsides: A, D, E and F. Airside B has been removed and replaced with a luggage sorting building (and previously had remained vacant since Eastern Airlines ceased operations). Airside C is being rebuilt and afterwards Airside D will be rebuilt. Airsides A, E and F are modern; the latter is also the international terminal.
A new runway is being planned to increase capacity in fair-weather conditions and a second terminal may be built in the 2010s. A remote parking building is also planned, probably sited near where the remote parking lot is now.
Baggage Claim and Ticket Counters are determined by which side your airline is on, the red or the blue.
Southwest Airlines (Albuquerque, Austin, Baltimore/Washington, Birmingham, Buffalo, Chicago/Midway, Columbus, Ft. Lauderdale/Hollywood, Hartford, Houston/Hobby, Indianapolis, Jacksonville, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Long Island/Islip, Louisville, Manchester, Nashville, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Providence, Raleigh/Durham, St. Louis, San Antonio, and West Palm Beach)
Spirit Airlines (Atlantic City, Chicago/O'Hare, and Detroit)
Southwest Airlines (Albuquerque, Austin, Baltimore/Washington, Birmingham, Buffalo, Chicago/Midway, Columbus, Ft. Lauderdale/Hollywood, Hartford, Houston/Hobby, Indianapolis, Jacksonville, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Long Island/Islip, Louisville, Manchester, Nashville, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Providence, Raleigh/Durham, St. Louis, San Antonio, and West Palm Beach)
