Charles B. Wheeler Downtown Airport is a city-owned, public-use airport serving Kansas City, Missouri. Located in Clay County, this facility is included in the National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems, which categorized it as a general aviation reliever airport. History This airport replaced Richards Field as Kansas City's main airport. It was dedicated as New Richards Field in 1927 by Charles Lindbergh and was soon renamed Kansas City Municipal Airport. Its prominent tenant was Trans World Airlines (TWA), which was headquartered in Kansas City. The airport was built in the Missouri River bottoms next to the rail tracks at the Hannibal Bridge. At the time air travel was considered to be handled in conjunction with rail traffic. The airport had limited area for expansion (Fairfax Airport across the Missouri River in Kansas City, Kansas covered a larger area). Airplanes had to avoid the Quality Hill and the Downtown Kansas City skyline south of the south end of the main runway. In the early 1960s, an FAA memo called it "the most dangerous major airport in the country" and urged that no further federal funds be spent on it. A new airport was then constructed to serve Kansas City, being the Kansas City International Airport (MCI) which was opened in 1972 with all scheduled passenger airline flights being moved from MKC to MCI at that time. The April 1957 Official Airline Guide (OAG) listed the following weekday departures from MKC: Braniff International Airways - 40 Trans World Airlines (TWA) - 39 Continental Airlines - 9 United Airlines - 4 Delta Air Lines - 2 Ozark Airlines - 2 Central Airlines - 2 The downtown airport has been renamed for Charles Wheeler who was mayor when Kansas City International opened. Richards Road, which serves the airport, is named for John Francisco Richards II, a Kansas City airman killed in World War I (and whose name was also applied to Richards Field and Richards-Gebaur Air Force Base). Despite concerns about the airport being unsafe, Air Force One frequently uses it during Presidential visits. Today the airport is used for corporate and recreational aviation. The terminal building today houses VML, a global advertising and marketing agency headquartered in Kansas City. Its location near downtown has excellent highway access. It is home to the National Airline History Museum. Though this museum primarily contains artifacts from TWA (due to the fact that most of its volunteers