[7] Construction of the airport began in 1936 and it was opened in 1938, with its first landing on January 11 of that year, by Captain Douglas Fraser flying a Fox Moth of Imperial Airways.

The airfield was heavily used by RAF Ferry Command and Air Transport Command for transporting newly built aircraft across the Atlantic Ocean to the European Theatre, as well as for staging operational anti-submarine patrols dedicated to hunting U-boats in the northwest Atlantic.

The Canadian federal government changed the name to "Gander Airport" after Newfoundland joined Canada in 1949.

[9] On 16 September 1945, the first transatlantic proving flight, a Pan Am DC-4, departed Gander for Shannon in western Ireland.

Some commercial transatlantic flights still use Gander as a refuelling stop; most notably, some American legacy carriers (United Airlines and Delta Air Lines in particular) who use the Boeing 757 to connect smaller European cities with their major US hubs.

[28] This practice has been controversial, since strong headwinds over the Atlantic Ocean during the winter months can result in the flights being declared "minimum fuel", forcing refuelling stops at Gander in order to safely complete their journeys.

[29] During the Cold War, Gander was notable for the number of persons from Communist nations who defected there (including Soviet chess player and pianist Igor Vasilyevich Ivanov, Cuban Olympic swimmer Rafael Polinario,[30] and the Vietnamese woman famously photographed as a naked girl fleeing a napalmed village, Phan Thi Kim Phuc).

[31] On 12 December 1985, Gander was the site of the Arrow Air Flight 1285 disaster, in which a McDonnell Douglas DC-8 with 256 on board, mostly soldiers from the US Army 101st Airborne Division, crashed during takeoff, probably due to being overweight and experiencing atmospheric icing; there were no survivors.

[37] The reception these travellers received in the central Newfoundland communities near the airport has been one of the most widely reported happy stories surrounding that day.

The musical stage show Come from Away and its film adaptation are based around the experiences of residents of Gander in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador and those affected by the forced landings.

[39] However, domestic passenger traffic increased by over seven percent in 2006, while weekly cargo flights from Iceland show some promise of expansion.