Bolton Field is a public airport eight miles (13 km) southwest of Columbus, in Franklin County, Ohio. It is a towered airport operated under the Columbus Regional Airport Authority. It is one of 12 general aviation reliever airports in Ohio recognized in the National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems (NPIAS) and is a reliever airport for John Glenn Columbus International Airport.Most U.S. airports use the same three-letter location identifier for the FAA and IATA, but Bolton Field is TZR to the FAA and has no IATA code.HistoryBolton Field opened on October 24, 1970, a day after Franklin County Common Pleas Court rejected a move by a nearby private airport to stop it. The airport is named after long-time Port Columbus International Airport Superintendent Francis A. “Jack” Bolton, honored posthumously when the city dedicated the airfield to him at its opening. The airport was built to handle personal and business aviation, freeing Port Columbus for commercial traffic. In 1980 the operation of John Glenn International Airport and Bolton Field Airport was transferred from the City of Columbus to the Columbus Airport Authority; in 2003 the Columbus Airport Authority and the Rickenbacker Port Authority merged to create the Columbus Regional Airport Authority, which manages John Glenn Columbus International, Rickenbacker and Bolton Field airports.
