Great Falls International Airport
Great Falls International Airport
Great Falls International Airport (IATA: GTF, ICAO: KGTF, FAA LID: GTF) is a public/military airport in city limits three miles southwest of central Great Falls in Cascade County, Montana, United States. The airport has also been called Great Falls Municipal Airport. The National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems for 2011–2015 categorized it as a primary commercial service airport. Federal Aviation Administration records say the airport had 143,811 passenger boardings (enplanements) in calendar year 2008, 146,438 in 2009 and 155,204 in 2010. Great Falls International Airport is home to Great Falls Air National Guard Base, which hosts the Montana Air National Guard's 120th Airlift Wing (120 AW), the "Vigilantes." Operationally-gained by Air Mobility Command (AMC), the 120 AW reequipped with the Lockheed C-130 Hercules in 2014, which it employs in medium airlift missions. In its previous incarnation as the 120th Fighter Wing, it previously flew the McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle. Malmstrom Air Force Base, home of the 341st Missile Wing (341 MW) of the Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC), is 10 miles (16 km) east of GTF, on the east side of Great Falls. With the transfer of its KC-135 aircraft in the 1990s, Malmstrom's 12,000-foot (3,700 m) runway is closed to fixed-wing traffic and open only to military helicopters, so Great Falls ANGB provides support for fixed-wing military aircraft visiting Malmstrom AFB.
Location
47.482°N, 111.371°O · 1.122 m s. n. m. (3.680 ft)
General data
Runways · 3
Lengths and surfaces from the public OurAirports register; open runways only.
Radio frequencies · 5 Official publication
Tower
Ground
ATIS (automatic information)
Approach
UNICOM
Frequencies from the official publication: FAA NASR, AIRAC 01 OCT 2026, checked on Oct 16, 2026. They change with each amendment: not for navigation without checking the current AIP. See the official publication In MHz.
History
Great Falls International Airport was initiated in November 1928. The airport was leased by the U.S. War Department during World War II and became a home for the 7th Ferrying Group (Air Transport Command) of the U.S. Army Air Forces during the war. Located on Gore Hill, the airport was known as Gore Field during its military use. During the war years, more than 7,500 bombers and fighter aircraft passed through Great Falls on their way to Europe and the Pacific. The U.S. Army acquired an additional 740 acres (3.0 km2) and built many buildings and other facilities. The airport was under government control until June 1948 when the Department of Defense deeded it back to the City of Great Falls with the stipulation that the facility could revert to military control in a national emergency. The airport was released from this clause in 1961.
In 1975 the terminal was replaced and all runways, aprons, and taxiways updated. With Federal Aviation Administration matching funds, the Great Falls International Airport Authority performs annual operations, maintenance, and capital improvements.
The award-winning terminal was designed by Davidson-Kuhr Architects of Great Falls, Montana, with the lead architect being David S. Davidson.
Great Falls has had airline flights since the 1930s. For at least part of each year from 1977 to 1981 it saw scheduled Northwest DC-10s EWR-DTW-ORD-BIL-GTF-GEG-SEA and back.
In 2011 the airport recorded the most boardings (172,415) in its history. GTF was the fifth-busiest of the state's 15 major airports in 2011, behind Billings (407,960 enplanements), Bozeman (397,822), Missoula (292,530), and Kalispell (179,034).
In early 2012, Frontier Airlines announced new flights to Great Falls from the Denver hub. The Airport Authority hoped to address rising ticket prices and a seasonal shortage of seats with low-cost Frontier flights, but Frontier announced it was pulling out of Great Falls during its Denver hub restructuring in December 2014.
AvMax, a Calgary-based large jet maintenance and repair business, opened a large operation at GTF in 2006; they employ 150.
What flies here
From our own logbook: 143 aircraft documented between 2006 and 2025.
Types seen here
Airlines with documented aircraft
Busiest routes from here
A count of our own aircraft profiles, year by year, from the public United States flight records: it reflects what we have documented, not the airport’s total traffic.
Airlines operating here · 5
Other airlines with direct routes
Airlines with current passenger routes from here, according to Wikipedia route tables cross-checked from both ends (October 2026).
Photo: United States Geological Survey (USGS) · Public domain · view original
Data from OurAirports (public domain) · destinations and airlines from Wikipedia route tables (CC BY-SA, 2026), unless another source is given · profile and photo from Wikidata/Wikimedia Commons (CC0 / CC) · summary and history from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).
Cite
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This page was last updated on October 16, 2026
APA
Vuelopedia. (2026, October 16). Great Falls International Airport (GTF). Retrieved October 17, 2026, from https://vuelopedia.org/en/airport/GTF
MLA
“Great Falls International Airport (GTF).” Vuelopedia, Fundación Poderia, 16 Oct. 2026, vuelopedia.org/en/airport/GTF. Accessed 17 Oct. 2026.
Chicago
Vuelopedia. “Great Falls International Airport (GTF).” Fundación Poderia. Last modified October 16, 2026. https://vuelopedia.org/en/airport/GTF.
Harvard
Vuelopedia (2026) Great Falls International Airport (GTF). Available at: https://vuelopedia.org/en/airport/GTF (Accessed: 17 October 2026).
BibTeX
@misc{vuelopedia_en_airport_gtf,
author = {{Vuelopedia}},
title = {{Great Falls International Airport (GTF)}},
publisher = {Fundación Poderia},
year = {2026},
date = {2026-10-16},
url = {https://vuelopedia.org/en/airport/GTF},
howpublished = {\url{https://vuelopedia.org/en/airport/GTF}},
urldate = {2026-10-17},
note = {Accessed 2026-10-17}
}Wikipedia
{{cite web |url=https://vuelopedia.org/en/airport/GTF |title=Great Falls International Airport (GTF) |website=Vuelopedia |publisher=Fundación Poderia |date=2026-10-16 |access-date=2026-10-17 |language=en}}