Zayed International Airport opened on January 2, 1982, replacing a smaller facility that had served Abu Dhabi since the 1950s. The new airport gave the UAE capital its first purpose-built international terminal and quickly became the home base for Etihad Airways, founded in 2003. Capacity expanded steadily: Terminal 2 arrived in 2005, a second parallel runway in 2008, and Terminal 3, a temporary measure designed to bridge the gap until a new flagship terminal could open, in 2009.

The airport sits on the mainland roughly 19 miles east of Abu Dhabi island, along the Dubai-Abu Dhabi expressway and within convenient reach across the Emirates. It is the second busiest airport in the UAE after Dubai International and one of the busiest in the Middle East, handling nearly 29.5 million passengers in 2024. Its primary role is as the hub for Etihad Airways, which operates long-haul routes to New York JFK, Chicago O'Hare, Washington Dulles, London Heathrow, Sydney, Melbourne, Toronto, and Dublin, among others. Air Arabia Abu Dhabi and Wizz Air Abu Dhabi also operate from the airport.

Terminal A opened on November 1, 2023. Previously called the Midfield Terminal and designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF), the 742,000-square-metre structure is arranged on an X-shaped plan and anchored by 18 long-spanning leaning arches that create a largely column-free, 50-metre-high departure hall. The undulating roof, inspired by desert sand dunes, drapes over the facade to control solar glare without external shading devices vulnerable to sand accumulation. Terminal A was the first terminal in the world to integrate all 9 biometric touchpoints, and houses the only US Customs and Border Protection preclearance facility in the Middle East. On February 9, 2024, the airport was officially renamed Zayed International Airport in honour of the UAE's founding father, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan.