For the original Lakeland Municipal Airport, see Lodwick Field In 1940 the Lakeland City Commission passed a resolution to replace the city's Lakeland Municipal Airport, which was built in 1933 and early 1934. The new airport, tentatively named Lakeland Municipal Airport No. 2, was named Drane Field in honor of Herbert J. Drane, one of Lakeland's outstanding citizens. The city had barely begun work on the new airport when, with the war already raging in Europe, it leased the facility to the War Department. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers improved the three existing runways and built a training facility for bombers and fighters. The new base, initially a sub-base of MacDill Field in Tampa, was named Lakeland Army Air Field, but was still known as Drane Field. Thousands of U.S. Army Air Forces pilots, navigators, bombardiers and flight crew received part of their advanced flight training at Lakeland during World War II, primarily in the North American B-26 Marauder. After the war ended, the Army Airfield was left unused due to the size of the facility far exceeding the needs of the city as well as the costs involved of converting it to civil use. By the 1950s, Lakeland Municipal Airport (renamed Al Lodwick Field in 1948) was dwindling due to the closure of Lodwick Aircraft, the airport's primary tenant. With the closure of Lodwick Aircraft, the city decided to phase out Lodwick Field as a municipal airport in the summer of 1957 and concentrate its resources on Drane Field in south Lakeland. Drane Field had deteriorated and languished underutilized for many years following the departure of the U.S. Army Air Forces in 1945. After several years of new construction and conversion to a civil airport, it was rededicated as Lakeland Municipal Airport in 1960 with Don Emerson as its first director. In the 1970s the facility was renamed Lakeland Regional Airport; in the late 1980s it was again renamed as Lakeland Linder Regional Airport for local businessman Paul Scott Linder. Linder had founded Lakeland-based Linder Industrial Machinery, a multimillion-dollar heavy construction machinery company, in 1953. The Chairman of the Lakeland Economic Development Council, Linder was also director of the Florida Council of 100, the Florida Chamber of Commerce and the Florida Council of Economic Education. He was named Florida's Free Enterpriser of the Year in 1988, received a Distinguished Alumnus Award from the University of Florida, and was named 1989 Florida Entrepreneur of the Year. Paul Scott Linder died on November 11, 1990. In November 2017 Lakeland Linder International Airport opened their first U.S. Customs and Border Protection General Aviation Facility allowing international aircraft with 20 passengers or fewer to land at the field with an approved overflight permit. In 2021 the airport had 128,576 aircraft operations, averaging 352 per day: 92% general aviation, 2% military, 1% air taxi, and 6% airline. In December 2021, 251 aircraft were based at the airport: 154 single-engine, 31 multi-engine, 60 jet, 3 helicopter, and 3 glider.