George Bush Intercontinental Airport
United States · Americas
About George Bush Intercontinental Airport
George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH IATA) is the main international airport of Houston and a major gateway into Texas. It is a hub for United Airlines.
George Bush Intercontinental Airport travel guide
Understand
Until its opening in 1969, William P. Hobby Airport was the main airport of the region, serving quite a bit of intercontinental service. While Intercontinental was meant to replace Hobby, it ended up supplementing it to the point that there was even planes flying between the two as "cross-town shuttles" in the 1970s and 1980s. In the 1980s and 1990s, Continental Airlines established a dual hub system with IAH and Hobby, and United eventually inherited the Intercontinental hub when they merged. In fact, this airport is United's largest hub and also hosts the airline's (and one of the world's) longest flight (Houston - Sydney). Houston is also United's main hub for Latin America, so it has nonstop flights to most cities in Mexico, in addition to Central and South America. If you're traveling with Southwest the majority of its flights land and take off at William P Hobby Airport (HOU IATA), another airport (11 mi (18 km)) south of and closer to downtown and midtown Houston. However, since 2021, Southwest also offers flights into or out of George Bush International Airport. American Eagle, Delta/Delta Connection, and Frontier offer flights to both airports while Allegiant serves only Houston Hobby.
Getting around
There are two train services - the Skyway (post-security) and the Subway (pre-security). They stop at all the terminals (Terminals D and E are combined into one stop). The Subway makes an extra stop at the airport Marriott.
Buy
IAH has several retail stores, including several magazine stands and bookstores. Other retail stores include Brooks Brothers, Eddie Bauer, Corsa Collections, Pandora, Sunglass Hut, Swarovski, The Body Shop, Johnston & Murphy, and Victoria's Secret. There is a large duty free store in Terminal D near gate D7, it is ATU’s largest store in the U.S. and uniquely designed as the airport’s only walkthrough store. There are also duty free stores at seven other locations at Bush Airport, two locations in Terminal E, two kiosks in Terminal A and a shop in Terminal B.
Sleep
1 Houston Airport Marriott at George Bush Intercontinental is the only hotel that is directly attached to the airport with on-site restaurant, lounge, fitness, and conference facilities. Most airport hotels are either south along John F. Kennedy Boulevard or just east of the airport along Will Clayton Parkway. Virtually all of them run shuttle buses to the airport. For more information on hotels close to the airport, see North Houston.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia, travel guide fromWikivoyage (CC BY-SA)。Photography via Wikimedia Commons.