Inverness Airport is located at Dalcross, on the A96 road, some 10 miles (16 km) east of Inverness. The airport is operated by the government-owned Highlands and Islands Airports Ltd. (HIAL) and has the International Air Transport Association (IATA) location code "INV". The airport operates regional services around the Highlands and islands, scheduled services to Edinburgh, Glasgow, London and Manchester, together with charter services to the Mediterranean. 628,526 passengers used Inverness in 2014, the busiest of the HIAL-run airports. There are two runways of 1887m (6191 feet) and 700m (2297 feet) respectively.
Inverness town council established an airstrip at Longman in 1933, and it was here that Captain Ted Fresson (1891 - 1963) established Highland Airways, offering a pioneering passenger and mail service between Inverness, Aberdeen, Wick and the Northern Isles. The Longman airstrip was requisitioned by the Royal Air Force during World War II and closed in 1947. It was Fresson who had identified the suitability of Dalcross as an airfield, took up residence in nearby farmhouse and began flying from here in the late 1930s. He encouraged the Air Ministry to develop the field as a military air base and Lysander aircraft from 614 squadron began operations in 1940. The grass airstrip proved unsatisfactory and three hard runways were laid the following year and Dalcross operated as a training base. British European Airways - the successor of Fresson's Highland Airways - moved operations from Longman to Dalcross in 1947 marking its opening as a commercial airport. Dalcross was renamed Inverness Airport in 1953. The first terminal building was the former military guardroom while the current glass and tubular steel terminal was built in 1998 under the private-finance initiative. A bronze statue of Fresson was erected at the airport in 1991 and was moved to the front of the new terminal after its completion.
The airport was used as a location in the film 633 Squadron in 1963.
