[1] It is located six nautical miles (7 mi, 11 km) south of the central business district of Sioux City,[1] just west of Sergeant Bluff.

The construction of Sioux City Army Air Base began in March 1942, about three months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

With the end of World War II, the former training base switched to becoming a processing center to discharge personnel out of the service and back into civilian life.

[8] The mission of the 140th AAFBU was to offer flight and ground training to all commissioned and enlisted members of the Air Force Reserve residing in Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, South Dakota and Wyoming.

[11] After petitioning the FAA for a changed airport identifier in 1998 and 2002, authorities found the alternatives offered - GWU, GYO, GYT, SGV, and GAY - to be unappealing, and elected to stay with SUX.

[14] In April 2008, Frontier announced it would be ending service to Sioux City on May 12, citing economic conditions after the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

[16] In July 2011, Delta Air Lines (who merged with Northwest in 2009) told the United States Department of Transportation that a weak economy and lower seat demand would force the company to reduce flights to several smaller communities including Sioux City unless it received assistance from the federal government.

[20] In the year ending December 31, 2021, the airport had 19,509 aircraft operations: an average of 53 per day: 51% general aviation, 25% military, 14% air taxi, and 9% airline.