Located 3 mi (4.8 km) northwest of Downtown San Jose, the airport serves both the city and the Santa Clara Valley region of the greater Bay Area.

[10] Since 2012, SJC has experienced one of the fastest rates of seat capacity growth among major airports in the United States,[11] reaching a peak of 15.7 million passengers in 2019.

The location near downtown San Jose is convenient, but SJC is surrounded by the city and has little room for expansion.

[20] Pacific also flew Fairchild F-27s to SJC, and merged with Bonanza Air Lines and West Coast Airlines to form Air West which was renamed Hughes Airwest, continuing at SJC with McDonnell Douglas DC-9-30s before it merged into Republic Airlines (1979–1986).

This program showed that homes near the airport could be retrofitted cost-effectively to reduce indoor aircraft noise substantially.

[22] American Airlines opened a hub at San Jose in 1988, using slots it obtained in the buyout of AirCal (formerly Air California) in 1986.

The aircraft proved ill-suited for the route; the San Jose airport's short runway prevented the planes from taking off with a full cabin and fuel tanks.

[25][26] By the summer of that year, the airline served Paris, Taipei, and Tokyo nonstop from San Jose and had domestic flights to Austin, Boston, Denver, Honolulu, Las Vegas, Maui, Orange County, Portland, Phoenix, San Diego and Seattle.

[citation needed] American also canceled service to Miami, St. Louis, Seattle/Tacoma, Portland (OR), Denver, Orange County (CA) and Phoenix[citation needed]; the airline's flights to Los Angeles were downgraded to American Eagle regional flights.

[29] The plan, designed by Gensler and The Steinberg Group, called for a single, consolidated "Central Terminal" with 40 gates (four more than present), an international concourse and expanded security areas.

[33][34] Planning for Phase II began in early 2018, with 6 additional gates to be added along with a new concourse extension at the south end of Terminal B.

Alaska Airlines halted its Puerto Vallarta and Cabo San Lucas seasonal routes, Horizon Air ended its Tucson service and American Airlines ended its San Luis Obispo and Boston Logan links.

SJC suffered with many mid-tier airports during the 2008 rise in oil prices as airlines reduced marginal services.

[39] Frontier Airlines pulled out of SJC in May 2010, citing lack of profitability on its single flight from the airport to Denver, Colorado.

The airline used the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, making San Jose one of the first cities in the United States to see scheduled 787 flights.

[48][49] In the wake of its acquisition of Virgin America, Alaska Airlines grew quickly at Mineta Airport as well as San Francisco International Airport between 2015 and 2018, adding intrastate cities like Orange County, Los Angeles, and San Diego, along with East Coast destinations Newark and New York–Kennedy.

[52] Additional service to Austin, Atlanta, Cincinnati and San Antonio began in the spring of 2018 but did not return the next year.

Southwest Airlines greatly expanded service from 2016 to 2020, connecting almost a dozen new cities across the country to SJC and added flights to Honolulu and Maui in May 2019.

[54] Beginning in March 2020, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on tourism severely curtailed the amount of passenger traffic and flights at the airport.

[56] Despite this large downturn in travel and drop in passenger demand,[57] Alaska Airlines added flights to Palm Springs in 2021.

[61] However, British Airways also announced that it would suspend flights to San Jose starting in October 2023;[62] the airport ended the year with just over 12 million passengers, a number that failed to surpass 2017 levels.

In 2024, JetBlue cancelled the airport's last remaining route to the New York City area and later announced it would be closing SJC as a station entirely.

[citation needed] Norman Y. Mineta San Jose International Airport covers 1,050 acres (420 ha) at an elevation of 62 feet (19 m).

In the year ending February 28, 2018, the airport had 181,686 aircraft operations, average 498 per day: 66% airline, 13% air taxi, 20% general aviation and <1% military.

[3] From 1960 to 2010, San Jose State University operated a flight-simulator facility for its aviation program in buildings at the southeast corner of the airport.

Terminal A now has two paid-entry lounges called "The Club at SJC" where passengers can wait for their flights and have access to snacks and beverages.

Its design features dramatic daylit spaces, modern art, shared use ticket counters/gates, and chairs with power cords and USB ports on the armrests to charge laptops or handheld devices.

The terminal earned a LEED Silver certification from the U.S. Green Building Council in 2010 in recognition of the airport's significant commitment to environmentally sustainable design and construction.

Due to the airport's growth in recent years, a new temporary facility was added at the south end of the terminal that includes six additional gates as part of the $58 million project.

Plane spotters and photographers now utilize the space where the San Jose State University Aviation Department was formerly located at the corner of Coleman Avenue and Airport Blvd.