Dallas Fort Worth International Airport opened for commercial service on January 13, 1974, under its original name Dallas/Fort Worth Regional Airport. The name was not updated to reflect its international ambitions until 1985. Before the first commercial flight ever landed, the airport hosted a multi-day dedication ceremony from September 20-23, 1973, whose headline moment was the first landing of a supersonic Concorde in the United States. The aircraft was a pre-production Air France Concorde en route from Caracas to Paris that touched down before a crowd estimated at over 100,000 people. It was a fitting debut for what was, at the time, the largest airport ever constructed in the country.

Located roughly halfway between downtown Dallas and downtown Fort Worth, DFW spreads across more than 17,000 acres, making it the second-largest airport by land area in the United States, spanning portions of Grapevine, Irving, Euless, and Coppell. That geography was deliberate. Decades of rivalry between the two cities had kept them operating separate airports; the joint facility was a hard-won compromise brokered after the FAA warned in the mid-1960s that neither city's existing airports could handle the coming generation of wide-body jets. Construction broke ground in 1969 and cost approximately $875 million.

American Airlines established its first hub at DFW on June 11, 1981, and today operates the second-largest single-airline hub in the world from the airport, with Terminals A, B, and C dedicated entirely to its operations. Terminal D, which opened in 2005 alongside the Skylink automated people mover, is the primary international gateway and houses U.S. Customs and Border Protection facilities. The Skylink runs every 2 minutes across 4.81 miles of elevated airside track, connecting all 5 terminals without passengers ever leaving the secure area. As of 2025, DFW offers nonstop service to more destinations than any other airport in North America and ranks among the world's busiest airports by both passenger traffic and aircraft movements.