page_title: Florida Keys Marathon Airport
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Florida Keys Marathon Airport / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Marathon Airport FBO on June 218
context_page_description: The Florida Keys Marathon International Airport is a public airport located along the Overseas Highway in Marathon, in Monroe County, Florida, United States. The airport covers 197 acres and has one runway.
context_section_description: The 8000-foot airstrip in Marathon was built on 280 acres of land that was purchased at $70 an acre from Maitland Adams and Norberg Thompson of Key West. Belcher Oil Company was the prime contractor and constructed the airport for the Civil Aeronautics Administration. The project was started in the fall of 1942 and it was completed in the spring of 1943. The Marathon Airport was constructed during the early days of  WWII and was a portion of the U.S. Navy flight programs. Marathon would become a Navy Outlying Field (OLF) and an auxiliary airfield to [Naval_Air_Station_Key_West] (NAS). Used by Army Air Forces Antisubmarine Command, 26th Antisubmarine Wing. The Army Air Forces turned responsibility for antisubmarine warfare over to the U.S. Navy in 1943. For a time at the beginning of the war, the airstrip property was partly owned by the Florida State Road Department. After the war, Monroe County petitioned this agency to turn it over to the county for a public airport. For most of its existence, the airport has been a general aviation facility although it did have scheduled passenger airline service for over 25 years including regional jet service for a short time in 2007. Regional 44-passenger seat Convair 340 propeller service began in 1959 with National Airlines (1934-1980) serving Marathon on a flag stop basis as part of their Miami - Key West route and these flights marked the first time the airport was directly served by a major U.S. airline. 
  During the late 1960s and early 1970s, commuter air carrier American Air Taxi (AAT Airlines) ran a limited passenger service into Marathon with small Cessna twin prop aircraft. Also during the late 1960s, Southeast Airlines was serving the airport with three flights daily to and from Miami as part of a Miami - Marathon - Key West route utilizing two Martin 4-0-4 prop aircraft and a Fairchild F-27 turboprop. After the demise of this service, Air Sunshine, an airline founded in Key West, served Marathon with Douglas DC-3 aircraft to and from Miami. For a time during the 1970s and early 1980s, Air Florida Commuter provided service to Marathon and Key West via a code sharing agreement with Air Florida, followed by Provincetown-Boston Airlines (PBA) which primarily used a combination of DC-3 prop and smaller Embraer EMB-110 Bandeirante commuter turboprop aircraft as well as larger 58-passenger seat NAMC YS-11 turboprops on occasion.  Other commuter airlines that served Marathon at various times over the years with prop and/or turboprop aircraft included Air Miami and successor North American Airlines, Air South, Airways International, Bar Harbor Airlines operating code sharing service as Eastern Express on behalf of Eastern Airlines, Cape Air, Comair flying code sharing service as the Delta Connection on behalf of Delta Air Lines, Gulfstream International, Pro Air, Shawnee Airlines and Southern Express.  
  Marathon Airport was served by American Eagle Airlines operating code sharing flights with turboprop aircraft on behalf of American Airlines until 2000. In mid-2006, Delta Air Lines announced planned nonstop regional jet service between Atlanta and Marathon to flown by its regional subsidiary Atlantic Southeast Airlines (ASA) on a code sharing basis. Shortly after the Delta announcement, Continental Airlines announced that it would begin services to Marathon via its Florida code sharing partner Gulfstream International. In July 2006, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) notified airport officials at Marathon Airport that due to a shortage of personnel, the TSA would not be able to staff Marathon Airport with federal security screeners; passengers would have to board and disembark airline aircraft at the general aviation ramp area located on the opposite end of the runway instead of at the airport's passenger terminal. Both Continental and Delta then stated that using this area would be inconvenient to both passengers and airline staff, as it would cause lengthy delays in boarding due to all passengers having to be screened as they enter the aircraft rather than before
caption: Marathon FBO
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