Jodhpur State and flying club

In 1924, Maharaja Umaid Singh of Jodhpur cleared a landing strip near the under-construction Chittar Palace (later known as the Umaid Bhawan Palace) for private operations. In 1931, the Maharaja established the Jodhpur Flying Club, the first in an Indian princely state, appointing Geoffrey Goodwin of Johannesburg, South Africa, as the club's first flight instructor. The club's initial aircraft complement consisted of two De Havilland DH.60 Moth aircraft purchased from the Delhi Flying Club. In 1932, the club became the first institution in India to induct the De Havilland Tiger Moth trainer biplane. The aerodrome at Jodhpur was erected at a cost of 136,830 rupees.

Maharaja Umaid Singh used this infrastructure for regional aviation diplomacy, establishing the airfield as an international transit hub to assert state sovereignty amidst shifting colonial regulations. Jodhpur served as an important staging post on the Karachi to Calcutta sector, a route co-operated by Imperial Airways and Indian Trans-Continental Airways. The airfield also served routes connecting Europe to South East Asia and Australia. Air Orient and later Air France used the airfield for its services connecting Paris to Saigon, Hanoi, and Hong Kong, while KLM utilized Jodhpur on its regular Amsterdam to Batavia route. By 1937 the aerodrome handled 877 aircraft annually.

World War II

Following the outbreak of World War II, Maharaja Umaid Singh placed the state's extensive airfield network at the disposal of the war effort to secure political leverage. The Maharaja was later granted an honorary commission in the Royal Air Force, eventually attaining the rank of Air Vice-Marshal.

On 1 May 1942, the airfield and club were requisitioned as a military training centre with the formation of the No. 2 Elementary Flying Training School. The base was used as a maintenance and staging post by the RAF and later by the United States Army Air Forces as a transit airfield for "Hump" supply flights across the China-Burma-India theatre.

Indian Air Force

The airfield was upgraded in 1950 after the formation of the Royal Indian Air Force (which later became the Indian Air Force). From 1949 to 1955, the Indian Air Force maintained the No. 2 Air Force Academy at Jodhpur, and later from 1957 to 1970, it served as the Air Force Flying College.

New terminal

The Government of Rajasthan signed a memorandum of understanding with the Indian Air Force for the expansion of the passenger terminal in March 2017, wherein 37 acres of IAF land was transferred to the Airports Authority of India (AAI). In May 2021, the land was transferred by the IAF to the AAI through the Jodhpur Development Authority. The terminal's foundation stone was laid by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in October 2023.

The 23,342 square metre terminal was inaugurated on 4 July 2026 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, where he also launched the modified UDAN Scheme to expand regional infrastructure. The terminal incorporates Rajput architecture including arches and jharokhas. Developed at a cost of ₹480 crore (US$50 million), the terminal was designed by the Indian architectural firm STHAPATI and built to target GRIHA certification. The terminal scales the airport's operational capacity to 2 million annual passengers.