During World War II, the United States Army Air Forces Air Transport Command used the airport as a refuelling stop on its Pacific transport route from Hawaii to Canton Island for flights to Australia and New Zealand as well as a staging point for attacks on the Gilbert Islands, then partially occupied by Japan.

[3] By 1981, Air Tungaru, the former national airline of Kiribati, was operating nonstop Boeing 727-100 jet service to both Honolulu and Tarawa as well as nonstop flights to Papeete, Tahiti with this latter service being operated in conjunction with Union de Transports Aériens (UTA), a French airline.

[8] Cassidy International Airport was originally named after a United States Army World War II pilot, Wilbur Layton Casady, whose plane crashed near the island on 23 March 1942.

The name remained until sometime in the 1980s and was referenced in many books and a Sports Illustrated article on fishing in Kiribati.

[1] On 29 August 2008, Air Pacific (now Fiji Airways) announced they would suspend flights to and from the airport as of 2 September 2008.