The airport is located in the suburb of Forest Hill, 11 kilometres (6.8 mi) south-east of the city centre, on land leased from the Department of Defence.

It shares runways and some aviation facilities with the adjacent RAAF Base Wagga, which hosts ground training establishments and supporting military air traffic.

[2][4] Rex Airlines maintain a strong presence with its main engineering and maintenance base for its Saab 340 aircraft.

Pursuing this, Group Captain Harry Cobby (top scoring World War I ace) contacted Wagga resident Hughie Condon and asked him to suggest possible sites suitable for the establishment of an RAAF station.

The identified land was resumed from the Brunskill and Lyons families in the first half of 1939 and before long, a Fearnes bus was shuttling workers to the site.

[11] A new 780 m2 (8,400 sq ft) terminal building with separated arrival and departure areas and a kiosk was also constructed as part of the upgrade, replacing the 1940s facilities which had become crowded and inadequate.

Surrounding the terminal, additional apron space was provided to simultaneously accommodate a regional jet, two commuter aircraft and one military transport (such as a C-130).

At the time, projections indicated that the number of passengers handled by the airport would grow from 88,000 to over 130,000 per year by 2000, when there were expected to be 31,880 annual aircraft movements.

[13] In December 2009, a A$2.2 million upgrade to increase its capacity for future growth and to improve the security at the airport was completed.

[14] On 27 May 2010, the then Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development & Local Government Anthony Albanese announced that the federal government would provide funding worth $1.05 million, as part of the Regional and Local Community Infrastructure Program, to the Wagga Wagga City Council for the installation of the A$1.63 million Instrument Landing System (ILS), which were only found in all of Australia's capital cities.

[21] In 1996, Hazelton Airlines opened the largest maintenance base in regional Australia with a 1,430 square metre hangar.