Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport began as a privately built airfield on 278 acres of Phoenix farmland in late 1928, constructed by J. Parker Van Zandt of Scenic Airways. The first scheduled passenger service departed on February 23, 1929, operated by Maddux Air Lines. After Scenic Airways failed following the 1929 stock market crash and the property passed to the Acme Investment Company, the City of Phoenix acquired the airport on July 16, 1935, for $100,000, paying part cash and carrying a mortgage. That transaction turned a rural outpost nicknamed "The Farm" into a public asset that would define the region's growth for decades.

The airport's modern era took shape through successive terminal expansions. Terminal 1 opened in 1952, Terminal 2 followed in 1962 (the same year Sky Harbor surpassed one million annual passengers), and Terminal 4, the airport's largest structure at 3.9 million square feet, opened in 1990 at a cost of $248 million. Terminal 2 was closed in 2020 and subsequently demolished, leaving Terminals 3 and 4 as the two active facilities today, connected by the free automated PHX Sky Train. The airport covers 3,400 acres and operates 3 parallel runways, a configuration engineered around Phoenix's famously predictable daily wind reversal.

PHX is a primary hub for American Airlines, a lineage that runs through America West Airlines, founded in Phoenix in 1981, and US Airways, which merged into American in 2015, and a base for Southwest Airlines and Frontier Airlines. Ranked the 11th-busiest airport in the United States in 2025, the airport set a passenger record of more than 52 million travelers in 2024. It sits 3 miles east of downtown Phoenix, making it one of the most city-proximate major airports in the country, with direct connections to Valley Metro Rail and Interstate 10.