Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport (BHM): A White Paper on Alabama’s Primary Air Gateway

Posted on October 18, 2026 by nathanalbright

Introduction

Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport is rarely discussed outside the Southeast, and few travelers think of it as a connecting point. Southwest Airlines nonetheless routes some itineraries through it, linking Florida markets with the West. This paper looks at the airport’s history and facilities, the airlines that serve it, its route network, and its passenger traffic, in order to show what kind of airport it is and why a connection there makes sense.

Background and Facilities

The airport sits five miles northeast of downtown Birmingham, is owned by the Birmingham Airport Authority, and is the largest and busiest airport in Alabama, serving Birmingham and the central part of the state. It opened in 1931 as Birmingham Municipal Airport. The Birmingham City Council created the Birmingham Airport Authority in June 1986. After direct service to Mexico and Canada was added, the airport took the name Birmingham International Airport on October 20, 1993.

The current name dates from 2008. That summer the Authority’s board approved renaming the airport to honor civil rights activist Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth. Shuttlesworth was a Baptist minister who founded the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights in 1956 and in 1963 launched the Birmingham Campaign alongside Martin Luther King Jr. and the SCLC. A mural of him nearly 13 feet high and 66 feet wide, by artist Rico Gatson, was unveiled in Concourse B in May 2024.

The physical plant was largely rebuilt in the 2010s. The airport broke ground on a Terminal Modernization Project in 2011, which ran through 2014. The airport now has three terminal concourses with 19 gates in total. Ahead of the 2022 World Games, the Authority made several terminal improvements, most notably adding electrical power at every concourse seat. The compact single-terminal layout means a connection at BHM involves short walking distances compared with the sprawling hubs most connecting passengers use.

Classification and Financial Position

The FAA classifies BHM as a small hub. Federal T-100 data show 1,647,999 enplaned passengers in calendar year 2025 across 22 destinations, a 1.0 percent rise over 2024 and 105.6 percent of the 2019 level, which means traffic has fully recovered from the pandemic. The Authority has paid attention to its balance sheet as well: a 2020 restructuring of its revenue bond debt was expected to save more than $33 million in interest and to place BHM among the most financially sound small hub airports in the country.

Passenger Traffic

Enplanements count only departing passengers; total passenger figures count both arrivals and departures and run roughly double. The longer trend shows steady growth:

  • In 2018, more than 2.9 million passengers used the airport, a 10 percent increase over the 2.7 million recorded in 2017.
  • In 2023, passenger traffic rose 14 percent to 3,056,215 travelers.
  • In 2024, the airport passed three million passengers for the second straight year, reaching 3.24 million, a 6 percent increase over 2023.
  • 2025 continued upward. Monthly totals ran roughly 270,000 to 306,000 through the summer, and July rose about 7 percent over the prior year, which the airport linked to Birmingham hosting the World Police and Fire Games, with more than 8,750 athletes, coaches, and family members from 72 nations. According to the airport’s statistical report, traffic has risen year over year in 54 of the 57 months since March 2021.
  • Through June 2026, BHM processed 1,546,460 total passengers, with monthly figures climbing from 206,172 in January to 296,696 in May.

October is the airport’s peak. Airport communications staff have said October has become its busiest month of the year, and October 2025 led the year at 314,332 total passengers. College football travel is a large part of that pattern; airport leadership has credited growth to local demand from people flying to game day destinations. A mid-October Sunday connection therefore falls in the airport’s busiest season.

Airlines Serving BHM

Four established carriers form the core of BHM service, joined recently by a newcomer.

Southwest Airlines is the largest carrier at the airport. It carried 31.9 percent of BHM’s 2025 passengers. Early in 2025, Southwest operated 10 of the airport’s 21 nonstop routes. Its Birmingham network leans heavily toward Florida and the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic, with popular destinations including Tampa, Nashville, Fort Lauderdale, Houston Hobby, Baltimore/Washington, Orlando, and Raleigh/Durham. It also flies to Dallas Love Field, while American serves Dallas/Fort Worth International.

Delta, American, and United function as feeders to their hubs. These three connect BHM with several of their hub cities, with market shares at the start of 2025 of roughly 28 percent for Delta, 27 percent for American, and 10 percent for United. Atlanta is the dominant hub link; it is BHM’s busiest route as well as its shortest flight. United also serves Houston Bush Intercontinental, and both Southwest and United fly to Denver. Other hub destinations listed in current schedules include Charlotte, Chicago O’Hare, Detroit, New York LaGuardia, Washington National, Miami, and Philadelphia.

Spirit and Breeze represent the ultra-low-cost segment, which has been unstable. BHM lost nonstop flights to Fort Lauderdale, Newark, and Detroit after Spirit’s second bankruptcy filing in 2025. Breeze Airways filled part of that gap: over the Fourth of July weekend of 2026 it launched its first Birmingham nonstops, to Fort Lauderdale and Raleigh-Durham.

Route Network

The airport now advertises nonstop service to 22 airport destinations in 19 cities. The network is overwhelmingly domestic and concentrated east of the Mississippi, with a few western reaches. Las Vegas is the longest nonstop flight from BHM. The “International” in the airport’s name reflects its customs capability and past Mexican and Canadian service more than any current scheduled international flights; travelers reach overseas destinations by connecting through Atlanta, Charlotte, Chicago, Houston, and the other hubs.

The Phoenix Route

The Birmingham–Phoenix nonstop that carries passengers onward toward Portland is a seasonal Southwest experiment that has become a recurring fixture. Southwest added Phoenix and Nashville flights in 2024 to test the market, and the Authority’s CEO described it as a chance to show Southwest the community would support more nonstops. The inaugural Phoenix flight departed October 3, 2024, with a celebration at the gate. The service typically runs from fall into early spring, with roughly four hours of flight time. In 2026, Southwest put the Phoenix–Birmingham nonstops back on its fall schedule after a summer in which travelers between the two cities generally had to connect. When operating, the route has run once a day Monday through Friday plus once on Sunday, with an average westbound flight time of 3 hours 40 minutes. At Phoenix Sky Harbor, Southwest uses Terminal 4.

From Southwest’s point of view, BHM works as a connecting point because the airline does not need a large hub there; a single daily Phoenix departure, timed to meet arrivals from Florida cities such as Tampa, lets Southwest sell Tampa–Phoenix–Portland itineraries over a route that also serves local Birmingham demand.

Conclusion

Birmingham-Shuttlesworth is a mid-sized, financially stable small-hub airport that carries a little over three million passengers a year, has fully recovered from the pandemic, and has grown almost every month since 2021. Southwest is its largest carrier, with Delta and American close behind, United smaller, and Breeze now filling the low-cost niche left by Spirit. Its compact three-concourse terminal, modernized between 2011 and 2014, makes it an easy place to change planes. That few people have flown through it reflects its role: it is primarily an origin-and-destination airport for central Alabama, and connecting passengers like those on the seasonal Phoenix flight are a small, if growing, share of its traffic.

Sources:

Unknown's avatar

About nathanalbright

I'm a person with diverse interests who loves to read. If you want to know something about me, just ask.
This entry was posted in Musings and tagged , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply