The airport opened during World War II, when it was named the Wilmington Airport and the Greater Wilmington Airport. While under construction, the facility was taken over by the United States Army Air Forces during the war and became New Castle Army Air Base. Its mission was to facilitate the movement of aircraft to the British and other Allies. Members of the historic Women Air Service Pilots (WASP) served as test and ferry pilots and towed targets for student gunners. There is a statue today at the airport that honors the women of the WASP that served their country in the time of need. After the war ended, control of the airport was returned to civil authorities. A joint-use agreement was made between the United States Air Force and New Castle County authorities for a portion of the airport being retained for an Air National Guard Base. Trans World Airlines (TWA) operated a large overhaul base for its overseas planes at the airport until 1957, when the airline moved the base to the Kansas City Overhaul Base, which itself became the basis for today's Kansas City International Airport. Wilmington hosted the state of Delaware's first airline flights when TWA and American Airlines arrived in late 1947. From 1959 to 1971, the airport hosted the main operational base of Capitol International Airways, a supplemental air carrier, which had a fleet of DC-8 aircraft engaged in charter flights. By 1967, Eastern Airlines was operating Douglas DC-9 jet service into the airport with nonstop flights to Newark Airport, Philadelphia Airport, and Washington, D.C.'s National Airport as well as direct flights to Atlanta and Charlotte. Allegheny Airlines also served Wilmington. In 1968, AL had four daily departures using their F-27s nonstop to Philadelphia, Washington's National Airport, Atlantic City, and Trenton. In 1969, Allegheny no longer flew F-27s and changed the four departures to Convair 580 prop-jets with two to DCA, one to PHL, and one to ACY. United Airlines, while on a campaign to serve all 50 states, began service to Wilmington in 1984 with one-stop jet flights to Chicago. Service continued through 1987. Famed aviator Charles Lindbergh made a trip from Atlantic City, New Jersey, to Wilmington, Delaware, on October 21, 1927, as part of his triumphant tour of America after his solo trip across the Atlantic Ocean. During five periods since 1990, Delaware has been the only U.S. state without any scheduled commercial airline flights: from 1993 through 1998, again from 2000 to 2006, from April 2008 until June 30, 2013, between April 2015 and February 2021, and from June 2022 to January 2023. USAir Express carrier Crown Airways provided scheduled service to Parkersburg, West Virginia, briefly beginning in 1992 before its sale to Mesa Airlines in 1994.. In the late 1990s, the county leased the debt-stricken airport to the bi-state Delaware River and Bay Authority (DRBA), operators of the Delaware Memorial Bridge, and Cape May-Lewes Ferry, on a thirty-year lease with the provision that the DRBA may seek up to two additional thirty-year leases. Since taking over operations, the DRBA invested heavily in the airport's infrastructure - upgrading many aging buildings, rehabilitating taxiways and runways, and building numerous new hangars and commercial buildings on the property. Shuttle America offered scheduled flights out of Wilmington from the airline's founding in November 1998 until February 2000. They flew to Hartford, Buffalo, and Norfolk with 50-seat de Havilland Canada DHC-8 Dash 8-300 turboprops. Shuttle America would eventually discontinue its independent operations and become a commuter affiliate of United Express and Delta Connection. On June 29, 2006, a Delta Air Lines regional airline affiliate began flights from Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport to Wilmington Airport in New Castle County, the first airline service in six years.