Did you know Gander was once described as the largest airport in the world?

Gander International Airport, in Newfoundland, Canada, was once a crossroads of transatlantic aviation. According to the Gander International Airport Authority, construction began in earnest in 1936, and a few years later the airfield had four paved runways, making it “the largest airport in the world at the time”. On 11 January 1938 a Fox Moth operated by Imperial Airways for the Newfoundland Government landed there, flown by Captain Douglas Fraser.

Its position on the Great Circle Route made Gander the main staging point for Allied aircraft flying to Europe during the Second World War. In November 1940 Captain D.C.T. Bennett led a first fleet of seven Lockheed Hudson bombers across the Atlantic, and more than 20,000 North American-built fighters and heavy bombers followed. Control passed to the Canadian Government in 1942 and returned to the Newfoundland Government in 1945.

By the end of 1945, Pan American, TWA, Trans-Canada Air Lines and BOAC had begun regular Atlantic services through Gander, and in the 1950s it ranked among the world’s busiest international airports, handling 13,000 aircraft a year. In the early 1960s jets able to cross the Atlantic nonstop reduced its use by scheduled carriers, but technical stops remain important: the airport says 20% of business jets flying the North Atlantic stop there.

The history page does not cover more recent events in detail, so readers interested in later chapters of Gander’s story should consult the airport authority directly.