The air base opened shortly after the attacks on Pearl Harbor. Norton was placed on the Department of Defense's base closure list in 1989. The closure was cited as due to environmental wastes, inadequate facilities, and air traffic congestion. The last of the base facilities closed in 1995.
Status
Most parts of San Bernardino International Airport were completed in 2011, but a customs facility is still under construction. San Bernardino International Airport was built to conform to aviation-demand modeling and allocations performed as part of the 2008 Regional Transportation Plan of the Southern California Association of Governments, the Metropolitan Planning Organization for San Bernardino, Los Angeles, Riverside, Ventura, Imperial, and Orange counties. The 2008 R.T.P. projects 9.4 million passengers and 1.29 million tons of air cargo at San Bernardino International Airport in 2035 with improved ground access provided, in part, by high-speed rail. The California High-Speed Rail Authority is currently performing alternatives analysis regarding the Los Angeles-to-San Diego segment, which includes, along the I-215 alignment, an optional station location at Rialto Avenue and E Street in the city of San Bernardino. The 2008 R.T.P states, "The high speed, reliability, and predictability of high-speed airport access will be needed to overcome mounting and increasingly unpredictable traffic congestion." U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents are available on call to clear imported goods. The airport is used as a base for United States Forest Service planes fighting forest fires. Several hangars that were formerly empty have recently been occupied by civilian-owned aircraft maintenance companies. The runway is long, easily accommodating air cargo aircraft. The airport and some of the surrounding area is within the city of San Bernardino and the Inland Valley Development Agency. The surrounding areas are being redeveloped by Hillwood. The airport was the filming location for both the 2001 movie The Fast and the Furious and the 2004 Martin Scorsese film The Aviator using a Lockheed Constellation preserved by the Airline History Museum, and flown in for the shoot, were done at San Bernardino International, with one hangar "dressed" as a Trans World Airlines facility.
Airlines and destinations
Cargo
Passenger terminal
San Bernardino's terminal can accommodate domestic and international airline service. Volaris, a Mexican low-cost airline, announced the beginning of flights to Guadalajara, Mexico in November 2017. So far, flights have not begun.
An audit completed June 2011 at the request of a grand jury investigation found examples of potential mismanagement and financial irregularities. In September 2011, as part of a special joint corruption task force, the FBI raided the offices of the airport and the home of airport developer Scot Spencer to secure internal documents. In late September 2011, Don Rogers, the Director of the SBIA Authority resigned. The grand jury report questioned a relationship between Rogers and Spencer, including a settlement of a legal claim by companies owned by Spencer against the SBIAA for almost $1 million without ascertaining whether Spencer's companies suffered damages equivalent to such an amount.
