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Houghton County Memorial Airport (IATA: CMX, ICAO: KCMX, FAA LID: CMX) is a county-owned public-use airport located four nautical miles (5 mi, 7 km) southwest of the central business district of Calumet, a village in Houghton County, Michigan, United States.[1] The airport is situated in the unincorporated community of Oneco in Franklin Township, near the village of Calumet on the Keweenaw Peninsula in northwest of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. A limited scheduled commercial service is available, subsidized by the Essential Air Service program. In addition, Royale Air Service provides a seaplane service to Isle Royale National Park depending on traveler demand.

Houghton County Memorial Airport
IATA: CMX ICAO: KCMX FAA LID: CMX
Summary
Airport type	Public
Owner	Houghton County
Serves	Hancock / Houghton (also Calumet, Laurium and Lake Linden)
Location	Oneco, Michigan
Elevation AMSL	1,095 ft / 334 m
Coordinates	47°10′06″N 088°29′21″W
Website	houghtoncounty.org
Map
CMX Location of airport in Michigan Show map of Michigan CMX CMX (the United States) Show map of the United States
Runways
Direction Length Surface ft m 13/31 6,500 1,981 Asphalt 7/25 5,201 1,585 Asphalt
Statistics
Passenger volume (12 months ending February 2022) 43,930 Departing passengers (12 months ending February 2022) 22,180 Aircraft operations (2019) 16,054 Based aircraft (2022) 22
Sources: FAA,[1] airport website,[2] Michigan DOT[3]

It is included in the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems for 2021–2025, in which it is categorized as a non-hub primary commercial service facility.[4]

History

The first airfields in the Keweenaw Peninsula were, as common at the time, near the shoreline; several are known to have existed on both sides of the Portage Canal, with airmail and ad hoc passenger service to Chicago's Meigs Field. These fields could not accommodate increasingly larger aircraft in the post-WWII era, and their locations made them unsuitable for expansion. Houghton County Memorial Airport was commissioned at its current location in 1948, with air service on Wisconsin Central Airlines commencing a few months later via milk run service to Chicago and Detroit via many intermediate stops.[5]

For the next sixty years, Wisconsin Central's corporate successors - sequentially, North Central Airlines, Republic Airlines, Northwest Airlink operated by Simmons Airlines, Mesaba Airlines, and Pinnacle Airlines, and Delta Connection - maintained regular passenger service, to varying combinations of Chicago, Detroit, and Minneapolis. Flights to Detroit usually included a stop at Marquette County Airport until 1999, and Sawyer International Airport from 1999-2003, when direct service to Detroit was cancelled in favor of exclusive service to Minneapolis.

Following the great recession in 2008-2009 and corresponding reduction in passenger traffic, Mesaba Airlines filed for subsidized service under the Essential Air Service program.[6] Despite strong community support for Mesaba's service, the FAA instead selected Skywest Airlines, operating as United Express, making two daily flights to Chicago. On 11 March 2022, SkyWest announced its intention to withdraw from the airport (and 30 others), which would leave the airport with no scheduled passenger service.[7]

IATA Code

The airport's IATA airport code, CMX, has been explained in several ways. According to the airport authority, it stands for Canadian Michigan eXchange,[8] as the airfield would serve as an emergency diversion point for flights from cities like Toronto to western Canada. Although the airport does occasionally host weather-related diversions, especially for flights to Thunder Bay, for the most part the relatively short runway, limited emergency facilities, and less favorable weather compared to nearby Sawyer International Airport in Marquette mean the latter is preferred.

A second explanation, possibly apocryphal, references the once-common practice of appending "X" to two-character weather station codes, such as seen, for example, in Los Angeles (LAX) and Portland, Oregon (PDX) - with "CM" in this case referencing nearby Calumet.

Facilities and aircraft

Houghton County Memorial Airport covers an area of 1,996 acres (808 ha) at an elevation of 1,095 feet (334 m) above mean sea level. It has two asphalt paved runways: 13/31 is 6,500 by 150 feet (1,981 x 46 m) and 7/25 is 5,201 by 100 feet (1,585 x 30 m).[1]

For the 12-month period ending December 31, 2019, the airport had 16,054 aircraft operations, an average of 44 per day: 68% were general aviation, 19% scheduled commercial, 13% air taxi and less than 1% military. In May 2022, there were 22 aircraft based at this airport: 20 single-engine and 2 multi-engine.[9]

The passenger terminal building, named after former County Commissioner W. Clarence Dwyer, is a comparatively basic facility, with a passenger waiting room and a single rental car counter. There is one gate, consisting of a simple door leading to the tarmac. The terminal once included a cafe, which closed some time ago, and the space was repurposed into offices for the Veterans Administration.

Airline and destination

Passenger

This section does not cite any sources. (January 2022)

Airlines	Destinations
United Express	Chicago–O'Hare

Destinations map
Houghton Chicago–O'Hare Destinations from Houghton County Memorial Airport

Statistics

Carrier shares (March 2021 – February 2022)[10]

Carrier	Passengers (arriving and departing)
SkyWest	43,930(100.00%)

Top domestic destinations (March 2021 – February 2022)[10]

Rank	Destination	Airport	Passengers
1	Chicago, IL	O'Hare International (ORD)	22,180

Cargo operations

Airlines	Destinations
FedEx Feeder	Milwaukee

References

Other sources

External links

• Official website
• Royale Air Service
• Aerial image as of April 1998 from USGS The National Map
• "Houghton County Memorial Airport" (PDF). at Michigan Airport Directory
• FAA Terminal Procedures for CMX, effective September 8, 2022
• Resources for this airport:
  • FAA airport information for CMX
  • AirNav airport information for KCMX
  • ASN accident history for CMX
  • FlightAware airport information and live flight tracker
  • NOAA/NWS weather observations: current, past three days
  • SkyVector aeronautical chart, Terminal Procedures

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