Auckland International Airport (AKL) began taking shape in 1960, when construction crews moved more than 5 million cubic metres of earth to carve a main runway from the Māngere peninsula, on land that included parcels reclaimed from the Manukau Harbour. The Air New Zealand jet base opened on July 20, 1965, when the airline's first DC-8 arrived non-stop from Long Beach, California. Commercial passenger operations followed on November 24, 1965, with an Air New Zealand DC-8 departing for Sydney carrying 129 passengers. The airport was officially opened by Governor-General Sir Bernard Fergusson on January 29, 1966, marked by a three-day air pageant that drew more than 200,000 Aucklanders.

The airport operates on a single concrete runway, 3,635 metres long, making it the busiest single-runway airport in Oceania. It handles close to 19 million passengers a year, split roughly between 8.5 million domestic and 10.4 million international travellers. That volume moves through 2 separate terminals: an international terminal officially named the Jean Batten Terminal in 1977, and a domestic terminal approximately 500 metres away. A major terminal integration programme, costing in the region of NZ$3.9 billion, is underway to consolidate both operations into one building.

AKL is Air New Zealand's primary hub and the operating base for Jetstar in New Zealand. Long-haul routes extend to Los Angeles, San Francisco, Houston, New York JFK, London, Singapore, Tokyo, and beyond. New Zealand's geographic isolation means AKL is, for much of the world's airline industry, the outermost point of the network. The airport's position on the narrow Māngere isthmus, flanked by two harbours, shapes everything from its single-runway constraint to the sweeping ocean approaches that define the flight paths above it.