In September 1991, the State Council of China and the Central Military Commission approved a 1.85 billion yuan project to build a new airport to replace Guilin Qifengling Airport as Guilin's civil airport. Construction began in July 1993, and Liangjiang Airport was opened on 1 October 1996.

Liangjiang Airport now features a 3,200 meter-long runway, a 150,000 square meter large parking apron, 20 gate positions, and a 50,000 square meter large terminal building. The airport has also invested 20 million yuan into improving Liangjiang International's aesthetics and making the airport more environmentally-friendly. The airport has received several awards for their efforts.

Starting from 30 September 2018, all flights from Terminal 1 have been moved to Terminal 2. Terminal 2 has a floor area of 100,000 square meters, 22 security lanes which 17 for domestic and 5 for International and 25 boarding gate, the designed capacity to handle 12 million passengers and 95,000 tons of cargo a year. The construction of Terminal 2 started in December 2015 and it was opened on 30 September 2018, at a total cost of 3.258 billion yuan. Following the opening of the new Terminal 2, Terminal 1 was closed temporarily for renovation. A new apron and taxi lanes have been built and opened along with the new terminal.