Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport opened on May 1, 1929, as Merle Fogg Field, named for World War I aviator Merle Fogg, who bought an abandoned nine-hole golf course destroyed in the 1926 Miami hurricane for $1,200 and built 2 unpaved, criss-crossing runways on the site. The airport's civilian life was brief. At the start of World War II, the U.S. Navy commissioned it as Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale, paved the runways, erected a control tower, and turned the field into a primary training base for Grumman TBF Avenger torpedo bomber crews. On December 5, 1945, five Avengers designated Flight 19 departed the station on a routine navigational exercise and vanished over the Atlantic, never to be found, a disappearance that became foundational to the legend of the Bermuda Triangle.

After the Navy withdrew, Broward County took control of the facility, and it went through successive identities before acquiring its current name as Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport. Passenger milestones followed steadily: commercial service to Nassau launched in 1953, domestic routes opened by the late 1950s, and by 1970 annual passengers had topped 1 million. The airport now spans 1,400 acres in unincorporated Broward County, operating 4 terminals, roughly 66 gates, and 2 parallel runways, 9,000 and 8,000 feet respectively.

FLL sits about 3 miles southwest of downtown Fort Lauderdale and 21 miles north of Miami, placing it in direct competition with Miami International while carving out a distinct identity as a low-cost-carrier stronghold. JetBlue uses FLL as a focus city, and Allegiant Air maintains an operating base there. Southwest Airlines treats it as a primary South Florida station. The airport's proximity to Port Everglades, one of the busiest cruise ports in the world, gives it an outsized role in regional leisure travel. In 2024, FLL handled approximately 35.2 million passengers, ranking it 19th among U.S. airports overall and 13th for international traffic.