Prior to the construction of Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport (GSP), our communities were served with two separate airports in Greenville and Spartanburg.  With the onset of the Jet Age, smaller airports were no longer adequate to meet future growth.

So, a group of Upstate business leaders, led by Roger Milliken and Charlie Daniel, organized an effort to build a new, modern airport. They quickly determined that a local community called Flatwood, with long stretches of flat land between Greenville and Spartanburg, was ideally situated to serve as the site of a regional airport.

The process of acquiring the land began in late 1958, and construction began in 1961. The first commercial flight, Eastern Airlines flight 580, arrived at GSP on October 15, 1962 at 7:33 a.m.

GSP was the first modern airport built from scratch and offered many technological advancements including being the first airport to install lights in the pavement of its runway.  Today, GSP continues to be one of the finest and most innovative airports in the nation.  The GSP story continues….