The National Weather Service office located at the airport suffered a loss of its WSR-88D radar as the powerful hurricane made landfall and moved inland.

[1] For the 12-months ending December 31, 2015, the airport had 31,961 aircraft operations, an average of 88 per day: 55 percent general aviation, 36% air taxi, 9% military and 1% scheduled passenger airlines.

[8][9] Historically, Lake Charles was served by Eastern Air Lines beginning in the late 1940s with Martin 4-0-4 and Convair 340 twin prop "Silver Falcon" airliner flights to Houston via Beaumont/Port Arthur and also to Baton Rouge and New Orleans via Lafayette.

Some eastbound flights operated by Eastern continued on with direct, no change of plane service to Atlanta, New York/Newark Airport and Boston, although a number of intermediate stops were made en route.

[10] In 1958, Eastern was operating daily round trip Convair 340 service on a routing of Brownsville - Corpus Christi - Houston Hobby Airport - Beaumont/Port Arthur - Lake Charles - Lafayette - Baton Rouge - New Orleans - Mobile - Pensacola - Montgomery - Birmingham - Atlanta.

According to the Official Airline Guide (OAG), in April 1975 Texas International was operating ten flights a day into the airport with these services including nonstop DC-9 jet service from Houston George Bush Intercontinental Airport, New Orleans, Shreveport, Lafayette, LA and Beaumont, TX as well as direct, no change of plane DC-9 jet flights from Mexico City, Dallas/Fort Worth, Austin, Abilene and San Angelo.

[16] Royale Airlines, which was a commuter air carrier based in Louisiana, served the airport with Beechcraft 99 and Embraer EMB-110 Bandeirante turboprop flights from Houston, New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Lafayette, Shreveport and Fort Polk.

Metro Airlines, a commuter air carrier, served Lake Charles as well with Short 330 turboprop service to Houston George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH) operated independently and also operated Eastern Express service to IAH with de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter turboprops via a code sharing agreement with Eastern Air Lines during the mid 1980s.

Envoy Air and SkyWest fly nonstop to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) on behalf of American Airlines while United Express, also operating Embraer ERJ-145 as well as Canadair CRJ-200 regional jets, serves the United Airlines hub located at Houston George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH) with nonstop flights from Lake Charles.