The airport was proposed by Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele during his 2019 presidential campaign as a part of his Cuscatlán Plan and construction was approved by the Legislative Assembly on 26 April 2022.

In 2019, then Salvadoran presidential candidate Nayib Bukele published his Cuscatlán Plan, an outline of his objectives and goals as president of El Salvador.

[6] The plan estimated that in the first ten years of operation, the airport would accommodate 1 to 3 million passengers and around 18,000 aircraft movements.

Federico Anliker, the president of the Autonomous Port Executive Commission [es] (CEPA) separately estimated that the airport's construction would create over 23,700 new jobs.

[4] According to Oscar Avalle, a representative of the Development Bank for Latin America, the Airport of the Pacific will have two gates that will be able to serve two or three planes each.

[18] In October 2021, the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources [es] (MARN) advised CEPA to change the location of the Airport of the Pacific citing environmental concerns.

MARN suggested moving the airport slightly to the northeast, as its planned location disrupted the habitats of several endangered species and was at risk of being submerged by rising sea levels.