About Windham Airport


Windham Airport (KIJD) is a public use, publicly owned General Aviation airport on 280 acres, located approximately three miles from the City of Willimantic, in the town of Windham, in Windham County. The University of Connecticut’s flagship campus in Storrs, Connecticut is a fifteen minute drive from the airport, and Eastern Connecticut State University is also nearby in Willimantic. The airport is designated as a Local GA airport in the FAA’s National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems (NPIAS) and has a primary role to serve small and medium sized general aviation aircraft in central Connecticut.

The airport consists of two asphalt runways, 4,200 feet and 2,700 feet long.  Complimentary facilities include aircraft parking aprons; T-hangars and larger aircraft hangar storage; aircraft maintenance and repair; propeller overhaul, repair and sales; weather station; and self-service aircraft fueling facilities accommodating single and multi-engine aircraft with a focus on corporate business and recreational flight operations.

Airport History

The town of Windham purchased 250 acres of land on which Windham Airport is located in 1923.  For some years, the airport was also known as Kirby Flats.  In 1938, constructed by the federal Works Progress Administration (WPA), completion of one paved runway was accomplished in time to celebrate National Air Mail Week. It was then decided to utilize the public airport to carry the mail of 28 towns in northeastern Connecticut for the first time by air. Wartime requirements soon led to the airport being expanded and upgraded in 1942/43.  The war ended and in 1946, a transatlantic airliner aircraft bound for Newfoundland, and then England, and carrying ten crew and 42 passengers including two well-known actors, Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh, had to make an emergency landing at the airport.  Everyone was evacuated safely. The state of Connecticut purchased Windham Airport in 1975. Effective July 1, 2013, FAA approved transfer of the State’s six airports, including Windham Airport, from the Connecticut Department of Transportation to the Connecticut Airport Authority.