[5] The National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems for 2011–2015 categorized it as a general aviation facility (the commercial service category requires at least 2,500 enplanements per year).

Adak Army Airfield was used during the Aleutian Campaign by both USAAF and Naval Air units, particularly in defensive actions against Japanese forces occupying Attu and Kiska.

[7] Following the war, the AAF turned Adak over to the United States Air Force until 1950, and then to the Navy who established anti-submarine warfare base there.

[7] Adak was most recently run by the U.S. Navy as a deployment base for P-3 Orion maritime patrol aircraft, primarily to conduct antisubmarine warfare operations against submarines and surveillance of naval surface vessels of the former Soviet Union.

Pan Am first operated a Seattle-Adak-Tokyo flight in 1946 to demonstrate the viability of a transpacific great circle route to the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration.

[13] From the 1970s through the early 1980s, the airline was operating nonstop service several times a week from Adak to Anchorage (ANC) with Lockheed L-188 Electra turboprop aircraft.