An airfield was established at Madurai by the Royal Air Force during the Second World War in 1942. After the war, the airstrip was used to ferry mail and newspapers. After the Indian independence, the airport was revived, and was opened as a domestic airport in 1952. The first passenger flight operated from Madras to Trivandrum via Madurai using a Fokker Friendship aircraft in 1956. Flights operated from the airport to Colombo in the early 1960s. In the mid-1970s, the runway was strengthened and extended to handle larger narrow body aircraft, with Indian Airlines operating Boeing 737 aircraft to the airport soon after. In the 1980s, Indian Airlines started operating regular flights to Bangalore using Hawker Siddeley HS 748 aircraft, and later Vayudoot operated flights from Madurai to Madras, Coimbatore, and Trichy. In the 1990s, the airport saw a number of companies operate flight services from the airport. East-West Airlines operated services to Bombay and Trivandrum from 1992 to 1996. In the mid-1990s, briefly, Indian Airlines was the only carrier operating from the airport, with services to Madras. NEPC Airlines launched daily flight services from Madurai to Madras and Trichy briefly, before it shut down in 1997, and later Indian Airlines extended its Madras service to Bombay. Jet Airways began operations in the late 1990s with connections from Madurai to Bombay initially and Madras later. In the mid-2000s, Simplifly Deccan and Paramount Airways operated flights to Bangalore and Chennai respectively. However, both the airlines wound up operations during the Great Recession in the late 2000s. In the late 2000s, the airport was selected to be modernised as a part of a plan by Airports Authority of India (AAI) to upgrade 35 Indian non-metro airports, and a new passenger terminal was opened in September 2010. Later that year, SpiceJet started services to Chennai, Delhi, and Mumbai with Hyderabad added later. On 31 December 2011 The airport was notified as customs airport, which enabled the airport to handle limited international operations and it came into effect from 1 January 2012. Two chartered flights from Malaysia landed at the airport on 25 August 2012, making them the first international aircraft to land at the airport after the declaration. The first commercial international flight began on 20 September 2012 with SpiceJet operating a maiden service to Colombo. On 28 May 2013, the Government of India permitted cargo operations at the airport, which became operational from 15 December 2017. IndiGo launched operations from the airport in March 2017 with a maiden service to Delhi via Chennai. On 17 October 2018, visa on arrival facility was introduced for passengers traveling from select countries. On 10 March 2026, the union cabinet approved the proposal to designate the airport as an international airport.