City: Tulsa, OK

Category: Getting Here, Getting Around

Telephone: (918) 838-5000

Address: 7777 E. Apache St.

Description: Just 5 miles northeast of downtown, Tulsa’s main airport is an easy drive from anywhere in the city. Served by five carriers, the airport hosts about 3,200,000 travelers a year and sees approximately 130 arrivals and departures a day. Travelers can find connecting flights anywhere but can fly direct to 15 U.S. cities, including Atlanta, Chicago, Cincinnati, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Memphis, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Newark, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, and St. Louis.The airport includes a variety of food choices and even offers a couple of spots—The Great American Bagel Company and Starbucks—in the pre-security area.There are children’s play spots in waiting areas, a military and veterans’ resource lounge, and two chair-massage stations post-security. Pre-security, there is a chair-massage station and the Hairport, a beauty and barber shop. If you should be changing planes here, you’ll have to go in and out of security to take advantage of this service, but, for the majority of travelers, this is the final destination.One of the nicest features is all of the seating areas available in the airport—great when that flight you’re meeting is delayed. In the main lobby are display cases with interesting items from local museums or exhibits of historical artifacts from Tulsa’s oil legacy. If the artifacts don’t remind you of Tulsa’s great debt to black gold, the 56-by-13-foot mural displaying a panorama of the petroleum industry from exploration to final distribution will. Colorfully painted by Del Jackson (1915–1982) it originally belonged to the Smithsonian Institution but was acquired by the Gilcrease Museum in 1997 and installed in the airport in 1998.Eight car rental companies have operations at the airport: Alamo, Avis, Budget, Dollar, Enterprise, Hertz, National, and Thrifty. See contact information under Rental Cars.Parking is no problem. The first half hour is free—a nice amenity for those who are picking someone up.