Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport opened on May 1, 1929, as Merle Fogg Field, named for a World War I aviator who had purchased an abandoned nine-hole golf course, destroyed in the 1926 Miami hurricane, for $1,200 the year before. It began with 2 criss-cross unpaved runways and was used mainly for small private aircraft. When World War II arrived, the U.S. Navy commissioned the site as Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale in 1942, paving the runways and constructing a control tower. The base was initially used for refitting civil airliners for military service before later becoming a primary training facility for torpedo bomber pilots. It is also where Flight 19, 5 TBM Avengers, departed on December 5, 1945, before disappearing over the Atlantic.

After the Navy decommissioned the station in 1946, Broward County assumed control in 1948. Commercial service to Nassau followed in 1953. The airport received its current name in 1959, the same year its first permanent passenger terminal opened. Passenger facilities expanded significantly through the 1980s. Terminals 2, 3, and 4 were built by 1986, replacing the 1959 structure. Low-cost carrier growth reshaped the airport in the 1990s, with Southwest establishing a base in 1996, Spirit in 1999, and JetBlue in 2000.

Today FLL operates 4 terminals with 67 gates and 2 runways, handling over 700 daily flights to more than 135 destinations. It recorded 35.2 million passengers in 2024, ranking among the top 20 busiest airports in the United States. Located between Fort Lauderdale, Hollywood, and Dania Beach, and adjacent to Port Everglades, one of the world's busiest cruise ports, the airport draws a heavily leisure-oriented traffic mix. JetBlue became the airport's largest carrier in 2026, following the collapse of Spirit Airlines that same year.