![Rick Husband statue at AMA.](/images/one-hundred-airports/ama/ama.jpg)
Rick Husband Amarillo International Airport
Amarillo, Texas, United States
Airport #61 of 100 · First visited 24 January 2016
I often have to travel to Altus, Oklahoma for work—and Altus is a city small enough that it doesn’t have its own commercial airport. The closest option is Lawton (LAW), about an hour’s drive away, but Lawton’s a tiny airport; there are no jet bridges, and it’s only served by a few flights a day on American Airlines to Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW).
Usually I just take the direct flight into DFW and drive the three and a half hours to Altus. I’ve also used Wichita Falls (SPS) and Oklahoma City (OKC) to get there.
![Map of Oklahoma and north Texas, showing the city of Altus, Oklahoma, and the Amarillo, Lubbock, Oklahoma City, Lawton, Wichita Falls, Abilene, and Dallas/Fort Worth airports.](/images/one-hundred-airports/altus-airports-map.png)
Airport options for Altus, Oklahoma.
Basically, there are no great ways to get to Altus, so for my most recent trip, I decided to at least try a different way and fly into Amarillo, as the price wasn’t substantially different from any of the other options.
Amarillo was pretty decent for a small airport; the terminal felt modern, and it had glass jet bridges and airplane-themed carpet, both of which I like.
![Carpet with an airplane pattern.](/images/one-hundred-airports/ama/ama-carpet.jpg)
On the negative side, it didn’t have a true TSA PreCheck lane; having PreCheck entitled me to a plastic card enabling me to keep my shoes on and to go through the metal detector rather than the body scanner, but I still had to take my laptop and liquids out of my bag. Signage also was not great for the rental car return; I missed it the first time and had to circle the airport before I found the entrance to the rental car lot, which still had no signs that I could see.
It’s still a bit of a drive from Amarillo to Altus (about two and a half hours, depending on route), but I’d consider using it as my Altus airport again.