On January 1, 1914,[2] a Benoist XIV flying boat from the company St. Petersburg-Tampa Airboat Line piloted by Tony Jannus, took off from the central yacht basin of the downtown waterfront,[3] on the first scheduled commercial aircraft flight in history.

[7] He was one of the U.S. Navy's first 250 Naval Aviators, commissioned at age 24 just as the United States entered World War I in 1917.

[8] He served as chief instructor of advanced flying at NAS Pensacola, Florida and was later assigned to Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

[9] On August 19, 1923, Whitted and four passengers were killed during a flight near Pensacola aboard the Falcon when the propeller broke off.

[12][13] National Airlines began service there in 1934; it moved to St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport by the end of World War II.

In 1929,[15] the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, at the request of St. Petersburg, agreed to base one of its famous airships (i.e., blimps) at Albert Whitted Airport.

[6][17] In 1934-1935 the Public Works Administration (PWA) built what would become Coast Guard Air Station (CGAS) St. Petersburg in the southeast corner of Albert Whitted Airport.

[18] During the first years of World War II, aircraft at CGAS St. Petersburg were part of a valiant but inadequate deterrent to the German submarine campaign in the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico.

As the submarine threat in the Gulf slowly abated, the air station concentrated on search and rescue activities.

Consolidated PBY-5A Catalina and Martin PBM Mariner aircraft came aboard during the last years of the war and stayed to be the backbone of the postwar search and rescue missions.

CGAS St. Petersburg also flew the large P5M Marlin, the last seaplane the U.S. Coast Guard procured in tandem with the U.S. Navy.

Hundreds of Naval Aviation cadets under the U.S. Navy's V-5 pre-commissioning program received initial flight training in Stearman N2S and Waco biplanes.

[25][26] A few days later on March 27, 2011, a T-28 Warbird that was performing for the opening of the Honda Grand Prix crashed into the water after the pilot reported mechanical difficulties and attempted to make an emergency landing.

[27][28] On March 23, 2014, a Cessna L19 owned by the Advertising Air Force ditched into the water south east of the airport after the pilot reported engine failure.

[29] On August 31, 2014, the pilot of a Piper PA-23, owned by Aerial Banners Incorporated, died after crashing 75 yards south of the airport shortly after takeoff.

[32][33] Later reports from the NTSB confirmed the aircraft crashed as a result of "total loss of engine power due to fuel exhaustion" while approaching Albert Whitted Airport.