Abandoned £1.5billion airport that wanted to be the ‘world's biggest' – with America's answer to Concorde

Scottish Sun

08-05-2025

It would have been home to America's answer to the Concorde
GROUNDED Abandoned £1.5billion airport that wanted to be the 'world's biggest' – with America's answer to Concorde
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A NEW airport that wanted to be the world's biggest would have have welcomed Brits to a popular holiday destination - only for it to never open.
Everglades Jetport in Florida hoped to be a major six-runway airport that would welcome some of the fastest flights in the world.
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An multi-billion airport once wanted to be the biggest in the world
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The airport would have been built with access to the Miami coastline
Credit: Google
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It would have been the home of America's answer to Concorde
Credit: Getty
This included the Boeing 2707, America's answer to Concorde which would have flown up to 1,800 miles an hour.
This would have been much faster than Concorde's to speed of 1,354 miles an hour.
The plan for the huge new airport was revealed in 1968, during the Golden Age of travel.
The need for the new airport was said to be because of the huge boom in travellers visiting the nearby areas, with Miami International Airport welcoming up to 10million passengers at that time.
Longer-term plans would see Everglades Jetport replace Miami Airport entirely.
It wanted to be the largest airport in the world, with plans showing it to be six times larger than the current JFK Airport.
A newspaper article said: "The future development of Marco Island received a tremendous boost recently with the start of construction of a mammoth jetport, the biggest ever, anywhere just 48 miles away."
Around 26,000 acres of land was bought - to put this into comparison, Miami International Airport is around 3,300 acres.
The airport would be linked to the coastline too with a huge new interstate motorway and monorail system.
The governor of Florida at the time, Claude R Kirk Jr, added: "With our new supersonic jetport, South Florida is going to become a major gateway to Europe and a jumping-off place for the Pacific as well."
Massive abandoned airport 3 times the size of Monaco left with rusting jumbo jets to be bulldozed and turned into new city
This was backed by Stuart Tipton, then president of Airlines for America who said: "The recent action taken by the Dade County Port Authority to construct a new jetport makes certain that South Florida will be ready to play its part in the supersonic age.
However, concerns were raved about the damage to the local environment which it claimed would "destroy the Everglades National Park".
Estimates costs of the airport were around $2billion (£1.5billion), the New York Times reports, but by 1970, construction had stopped, with just one runway built.
This was followed by the scrapping of the Boeing 2707 project in 1971.
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Just one runway ends up being built
Credit: Google Earth
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The airport is now used as a training ground for pilots
Credit: Public Domain
It has since been taken over by the Miami Dade Aviation Department, and is called the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport.
The 10,000ft runway is now used by pilots for training.
Lonny Craven, who now manages the airport, said: "It was supposed to be the airport for tomorrow.'
Closer to home, Croydon Airport was once the biggest in the world.
Having opened in 1920, it closed in 1958 after London Gatwick was redeveloped, and has since been turned into a museum.
Top 15 busiest airports in the UK
Here are the 15 busiest airports in the UK by passenger numbers in 2023 London Heathrow - 79.2 million London Gatwick - 40.9 million Manchester - 28.1 million London Stansted - 28.0 million London Luton - 16.4 million Edinburgh - 14.4 million Birmingham - 11.5 million Bristol - 9.9 million Glasgow - 7.4 million Belfast International - 6.0 million Newcastle - 4.8 million Liverpool - 4.2 million Leeds Bradford - 4.0 million East Midlands - 3.9 million London City - 3.4 million
And here is another abandoned airport in the UK that has revealed plans to reopen.