Detroit's city airport opens its first new facility in 60 years

Detroit's city airport marked a milestone last week with the opening of its first new facility in 60 years.

The Avflight complex at Coleman A. Young International Airport opened with a ribbon-cutting on June 3. Mayor Mary Sheffield, Airport Director Jason Watt, and Avflight Senior Vice President of Operations Joe Meszaros addressed those who attended. The complex grew out of a 30-year leasehold the city granted Avflight, which the city calls the first long-term lease in the airport's history.

The facility includes a 5,000-square-foot fixed-base operator terminal and a 20,000-square-foot heated hangar that can take aircraft as large as a Gulfstream G700. An attached heated indoor parking garage holds four passenger vehicles. The terminal runs 24 hours a day and features an open-concept lobby with a fireplace, a pilot's lounge, two private sleep rooms for flight crew, a conference room with audiovisual equipment and seating for six, and private tenant offices.

Avflight has operated at the airport since 2011 as its fixed-base operator and sole service provider, handling fueling, ground handling, and hangar services. A fixed-base operator runs the ground-side business of general aviation, and the new complex gives private and corporate aircraft a modern base on Detroit's east side.

The airport opened on October 14, 1927, and was the premier field in the Detroit area by the 1930s. Willow Run and Wayne County Metropolitan airports took over most operations beginning in 1947, though commercial airline flights kept using the terminal until 2000. The city renamed the airport in 2003 for Coleman A. Young, Detroit's first African-American mayor and its longest-serving.

The Avflight complex is the most visible result of a revitalization push that gained momentum in October 2022, when the FAA approved Detroit's first Airport Layout Plan in 30 years. That approval made the airport eligible for an estimated $100 million in federal grants over 10 years, money earmarked for new hangars, a new control tower funded by the FAA, and upgraded taxiways. The city has also completed a $3.5 million runway renovation and a $350,000 LED taxi lighting upgrade.

Among the planned additions is the Benjamin O. Davis Aerospace Technical High School, which is set to return inside the renovated main terminal and put students next to live aviation operations.

Nearly a century after it opened, Coleman Young International Airport is starting to look like an airport with plans.