Dallas Fort Worth International Airport held its dedication ceremony September 20-23, 1973, an event that included the first landing of a supersonic Concorde on American soil. Commercial operations began January 13, 1974, when American Airlines Flight 341 touched down from New York. The airport cost $875 million to build and, at 17,500 acres, was the largest airport ever constructed in the world at the time of its opening.

Situated roughly halfway between Dallas and Fort Worth along the Tarrant-Dallas county line, DFW was conceived specifically to serve both cities after years of political wrangling that began in the 1940s. That geography is deliberate. No single city owns it outright. The airport spans portions of several municipalities, including Grapevine and Irving, and even has its own ZIP code and U.S. Postal Service city designation. Its layout is organized around 5 semicircular terminals (A through E) arranged along a central International Parkway, connected airside by the Skylink automated people mover, which opened in 2005. Seven runways handle the operational load.

American Airlines is the dominant carrier here. It relocated its headquarters from New York to Fort Worth in 1979, five years after the airport opened, and DFW has been its largest hub ever since. American accounts for more than 80% of the airport's market share, and the hub it operates here ranks as the second-largest single airline hub in the world. In 2024, the airport handled 87.8 million passengers and served over 269 destinations, more nonstop routes than any other airport in North America. A $12 billion capital program, DFW Forward, is currently underway, with a new Terminal F planned for American Airlines.