Knoxville Downtown Island Airport or Knoxville Downtown Island Home Airport, often referred to as Island Home Airport, is a general aviation airport located approximately one-half mile east of downtown Knoxville, in Knox County, Tennessee, United States.This airport is included in the National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems for 2011–2015, which categorized it as a reliever airport. Although most U.S. airports use the same three-letter location identifier for the FAA and IATA, this airport is assigned DKX by the FAA, but has no designation from the IATA.HistoryDowntown Island Airport was established in 1930 by Tom Kesterson as a makeshift facility named Island Airport, located on Dickinson’s Island in the Tennessee River. Kesterson was one of Knoxville’s earliest aviators. He hoped that the private airport, which had a 4000ft runway, would attract commercial air service to Knoxville. In July 1934, American Airlines established a mail route that stopped at Island Airport en route to Washington D.C. and New York City. Passenger service from Knoxville to Washington D.C. was also offered on two daily flights on planes that carried up to eight passengers. Regular airline service to Knoxville was initiated on January 15, 1936.
