Charleston International Airport (CHS) traces its origins to August 10, 1929, when the privately formed Charleston Airport Corporation opened an airfield on roughly 700 acres of former mining land in what is now North Charleston. The city of Charleston purchased part of the site in 1931 through a $60,000 bond issue, and the Works Progress Administration helped fund further development through the 1930s. World War II transformed the airport entirely. The Army Air Corps took full control in 1942, and when the military returned the expanded site to the city in 1946, it came back with $13 million in improvements and 2,050 acres of paved infrastructure. A new passenger terminal followed in 1949, the first in the Southeast to be modernized after the war.

The Korean War triggered a second military reactivation. Civilian and military operations were formally reconciled in a joint-use agreement signed in 1973, and in 1979 the Charleston County Aviation Authority assumed control of the airport. A new terminal complex opened in April 1985 on a 1,300-acre site purchased from Georgia-Pacific, built for the future. The airport's name had changed too. Formerly Charleston Municipal Airport, it was renamed Charleston International Airport in 1983. A $200 million Terminal Redevelopment and Improvement Program completed in 2016 added 5 gates, installed a dome over the Central Hall, and gave the facility its current bright, open character.

Today CHS is South Carolina's busiest airport, handling over 6.3 million passengers in 2024. It sits approximately 12 miles northwest of downtown Charleston and operates under a unique joint-use agreement with Joint Base Charleston, where the U.S. Air Force owns and operates the runways. The airport is a focus city for Breeze Airways and is served by more than a dozen carriers including American, Delta, United, Southwest, and JetBlue. The Boeing 787 Dreamliner final assembly facility, which began operations on-site in 2011, makes CHS one of the few commercial airports in the world co-located with a wide-body aircraft production line.