Departure
94%
vs 95% ▼ 2
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Coleman A. Young Municipal Airport (KDET) is a general aviation field six miles northeast of downtown Detroit, Michigan, owned by the City of Detroit and named for the city's former mayor. Once the region's principal commercial airport, it now serves flight training, corporate and private aviation from its two crossing hard-surfaced runways.
Coleman A. Young Municipal Airport lies six miles northeast of downtown Detroit in Wayne County, Michigan, and is owned and operated by the City of Detroit. Once the Detroit area's main commercial gateway, it lost scheduled airline service in 2000 and today functions as a regional general aviation facility, popular with flight schools, corporate operators and helicopter tour companies. For a sim pilot it offers an interesting mix of a historic urban field with modern light GA traffic and a genuine ILS approach.
The airport sits in Wayne County, Michigan, about six miles northeast of downtown Detroit, close to the Gethsemane Cemetery that historically constrained runway expansion. It is bounded to the north by the former routing of East McNichols (6 Mile) Road, part of which was closed and annexed into the airfield to extend the approach to runway 15.
The field has two paired hard-surfaced, lit runways. Runway 15/33 is the primary strip, with a declared length of 5223 ft on runway 15 and 5482 ft on runway 33; this runway is equipped with an ILS. The secondary runway 07/25 is shorter, with 2970 ft available on runway 07 and 3701 ft on runway 25; both are hard-surfaced and lit but without an ILS.
Pilots can expect the following frequencies: Approach/Departure on 126.85 MHz, ATIS on 124.875 MHz, Ground on 121.85 MHz, Tower on 121.3 MHz, and UNICOM on 122.95 MHz. A remote Lansing radio outlet is available on 122.2 MHz. Runway 15/33 is served by an ILS for instrument approaches.
The airport lies close to the former line of East McNichols (6 Mile) Road at the north end of the field, and the adjacent Gethsemane Cemetery is a notable feature just off the approach to runway 15, both useful as ground references when inbound from the north.
Detroit City Airport, as it was originally known, opened on 14 October 1927 on a 263-acre site near Conner, and by the 1930s had become the premier airport in the Detroit area. It served as the region's main gateway airport through the Second World War, after which passenger airline service migrated first to Willow Run Airport and then to Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport. The field continued to host scheduled airline flights until commercial service finally ended on 18 September 2000, partly because the adjoining Gethsemane Cemetery blocked plans to lengthen the main runway for larger jets; Southwest Airlines cited this limitation, along with the city's inability to keep improvement promises, when it withdrew. In 1989 Mayor Coleman A. Young abandoned a runway expansion plan for the same reason, prompting protests from families with relatives buried in the cemetery after memorial statuary was removed in 1988 over collision-risk concerns. The airport was renamed Coleman A. Young International Airport in 2003 in honour of the former mayor. During Detroit's 2013 bankruptcy the airport was listed as a potential asset for sale, though no sale ultimately took place.
The airport now operates as a general aviation facility, categorised by the FAA as a regional GA field, with the vast majority of its roughly 33,000 annual aircraft movements being general aviation traffic alongside small numbers of air taxi, military and commercial operations. Around 65 aircraft are based there, including single and multi-engine piston aircraft, jets, helicopters and an ultralight. A single fixed-base operator provides fuelling and line services. In 2022 the airport gained its first Airport Layout Plan in three decades, opening the way to federal grants for new hangars, taxiway improvements and a possible control tower, and a helitour operator broke ground on a new facility there in 2025. The shorter runway 07/25 has been the subject of proposals for closure to free land for redevelopment, so pilots should check current status before planning a visit.
