These photos are of the dedication ceremonies for Miami International Airport's new runway 8/26 on August 26, 2003. The runway will open for traffic on September 4, 2003. Runway 8/26 is 8,600 feet long, 150 feet wide, and 800 feet north of and parallel to runway 9-left/27-right. Cost of runway construction was $161,000,000. Groundbreaking for the new runway was in April 2001.

After all the planning involved for this event, it would have been nicer if the Fire Department had not lined up their vehicles in direct line from the news crews and photographers' vantage point to the aircraft touchdown zone. The foam truck could have been positioned during the several minutes it took the aircraft to taxi in for the water cannon salute and the sedan could have parked somewhere else so as to not appear in everyone's photos and video.

Due to considerable pilot confusion, Runway 8/26 was renumbered to 8-left/26-right in April 2004. Adjacent runway 9-left/27-right was renumbered to 8-right/26-left, and runway 9-right/27-left was renumbered to 9/27. Runway 12/30 was untouched. Cost of re-signing the runways: $2 million +