Sacramento International Airport opened on October 21, 1967, as Sacramento Metropolitan Airport, the first purpose-built public-use airport west of the Mississippi River. Before it opened, all commercial air service in the region was handled at Sacramento Municipal Airport, now Sacramento Executive Airport. The original planners faced skepticism: a proposed site covering nearly 6,000 acres north of downtown Sacramento was considered excessive and poorly located. The skeptics were wrong. The airport surpassed one million passengers in its first year alone.

A second runway opened in 1987, its debut marked by the landing of a Concorde. In 1998, a new Terminal A brought the airport its current name, Sacramento International Airport, along with the first consolidated rental car facility of its kind in the United States. International service didn't arrive until 2002, when Mexicana began nonstop flights to Guadalajara. A rebuilt Central Terminal B opened in 2011, adding capacity and a short automated people mover connecting landside check-in to the airside concourse.

Today SMF operates from 2 terminals with 32 gates and sits approximately 12 miles northwest of downtown Sacramento. Southwest Airlines is the airport's dominant carrier, accounting for a significant share of total passenger traffic. The airport is a practical alternative to the Bay Area's congested airports for travelers across the greater Sacramento region, with direct connections to dozens of U.S. cities and a geographic position that makes it the de facto entry point for the Sierra Nevada ski corridor, Napa Valley, and the Central Valley.