[5] In 1928, the Charleston Airport Corporation was founded and purchased 700 acres (280 ha) of land previously belonging to a mining company.

Although privately developed at first, the City of Charleston floated bonds in 1931 to acquire a portion of the site for passenger service.

During the Korean War, the airfield was reactivated for military use and in 1952, the City of Charleston and the United States Air Force reached an agreement on control of the base and the runways—an arrangement that has been renegotiated over time and that continues to this day.

[6] In October 2009, Boeing announced that it would build a major plant on 265 acres (107 ha) at the airport as a second final assembly site for its 787 Dreamliner commercial aircraft.

In 2001, Air Canada briefly served the airport from Toronto but ended service immediately after the September 11th attacks in 2001.

[9] In 2023, Air Canada announced a return to Charleston with daily nonstop flights to Toronto starting in March 2024.

[2][11] For the 12-month period ending May 31, 2019, the airport had 118,211 aircraft operations, an average of 324 per day: 42% commercial, 28% general aviation, 16% military, and 13% air taxi.

The current airline terminal completed a three-year, $200 million redevelopment project in 2016 which added five gates and significantly renovated the interior appearance of the facility.

[12] The original terminal was built in 1985 and was designed by Howard Needles Tammen & Bergendoff, Davis & Floyd, Inc., and Lucas & Stubbs.

[16] CARTA, the regional mass transit system, serves the airport with one bus route that operates seven days a week.