It is the primary commercial airport for the San Joaquin Valley and three national parks: Yosemite, Sequoia and Kings Canyon.

It offers scheduled passenger flights to several major airline hubs in the United States and international service to Mexico.

As of 2024[update], the passenger terminal is undergoing a significant expansion project to expand the size of the security screening area, add new gates, and build a new international arrivals facility.

Due to its central location within the state, the airport is home to several military, law enforcement, firefighting, and medical air units.

The Fresno Yosemite International Airport opened as a military airfield in June 1942, just six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, leading the United States to enter World War II.

In 1946, the War Assets Administration reallocated the property to the city, and the construction of a passenger terminal on the northeast side of the airfield was immediately begun.

[11][12] From the central lobby, passengers used a tunnel to reach the open-air, remote concourse where they boarded planes from ground level.

[7] The terminal opened on March 28, 1962 and shortly after received an award from the San Joaquin Valley Chapter of the American Institute of Architects.

At the airlines' peak, United operated daily DC-8s jet service to Denver, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

The request was denied, with the FAA reaffirming its long-standing policy to only issue a new identifier code when an airport is physically relocated.

[20] In recent years, airport managers have embraced the FAT identifier code, naming a major expansion project “FATforward.”[21] Fresno has been the headquarters for a few airlines throughout its history.

In the mid-1980s, Far West Airlines was founded in Fresno and used the airport as a small intrastate hub serving Burbank, Los Angeles, Modesto, Oakland, Orange County, Sacramento, and San Jose.

When completed in 2002, the new concourse building received praise for its design and was named one of the top 10 projects in Fresno Architecture for the decade, with critics commending the use of steel and the curved glass facade.

The first international service started in April 2006 with Mexicana operating flights between Fresno and Mexico City with an intermediate stop in Guadalajara.

[19] With the new concourse extension and new international arrivals facility completed, portions of the original 1960s terminal building were given a major renovation.

The centerpiece of the project was “Sequoiascape,” a public art display in the central terminal lobby that depicts a life-size replica sequoia forest, reflecting the airport's role as a gateway to the nearby national parks.

They are surrounded by fallen logs, foliage, and the split rail fencing and granite curbs that visitors would see at the region’s national parks.

[37][38] Airport managers initially anticipated that construction on the terminal expansion would begin in early 2021 and be operational before the summer 2022 travel season.

SkyWest has a 17-acre (6.9 ha) maintenance and overnight parking facility on the east side of the airfield with 21 aircraft positions and an approximately 92,000-square-foot (8,500 m2) hangar.

[47] Aeroméxico and Volaris both operate international service between Fresno and Guadalajara, Mexico's second-largest city and a major airline hub in the country.

[19] As of 2016, international service on Aeroméxico and Volaris accounted for about 6% of all flights to Fresno but carried more than 13% of all passengers flying to the airport, a combined total of almost 201,000 people.

[4] Fresno Yosemite International Airport covers 1,728 acres (699 ha) at an elevation of 336 ft (102 m) above mean sea level, with two paved asphalt runways.

[52][53] For the year ending February 28, the airport had 92,361 aircraft operations, an average of 253 per day: 54% general aviation, 26% scheduled commercial, 11% air taxi and 8% military.

[70][71] Fresno Area Express (FAX) operates two public transit bus routes to the airport, each with half-hourly service.