The Government of Gujarat built the airport in the early 1970s. Safari Airways, owned by Vijaypat Singhania of the Raymond Group, operated regular services to Bombay and Bhavnagar using Douglas DC-3 aircraft in the 1970s. During the 1990s, Vayudoot and Gujarat Airways flew to Surat, but discontinued their flights in May 1994 and January 2000, respectively. The airport, with a 1,400-metre (4,600 ft) airstrip and an adjoining 60 by 40 metres (200 ft × 130 ft) apron, was then transferred to the Airports Authority of India (AAI) in 2003, who began to modernise the airport. After a failed initial attempt in July 2004 to connect Surat with Mumbai and Bhavnagar due to poor airport infrastructure, the now-defunct airline Air Deccan operated an ATR-42 aircraft daily from November 2004 to July 2005.

In 2007, the airport's 1,400-metre-long runway was extended to 2,250 metres to enable the landing of larger aircraft. Subsequently, commercial services resumed on 6 May 2007, with an Indian Airlines Airbus A319 flight to Delhi flagged off by the former Minister of Civil Aviation, Praful Patel. However, in October 2007, the runway was reportedly damaged due to poor quality of work during its extension. As a result, a limitation was imposed on the runway not to allow more than two operations of aircraft weighing over 75,000 kg up to its rated capacity of 80,000 kg, until the runway was repaired.

In 2009, the AAI announced that the airport required 864 hectares of land, and the state government had allocated such land for the development. Planned improvements at the airport included a capacity to handle up to seven jets at a time and extending the runway to 3,810 metres. The extension work on the runway was scheduled to begin in 2009.

The November 2014 collision of a buffalo with a SpiceJet Boeing 737 aircraft prompted the AAI to address safety issues at the airport and extend the runway from 2,250 metres to 2,905 metres, at a cost of ₹500 million. The runway extension and repair were taken up in three phases. In the first phase, the runway was extended by 655 metres.

The adjoining concrete apron measures 235 by 90 metres, and is linked by two taxiways to its sole runway that is oriented 04/22. The runaway initially 2,250 metres long and 45 metres wide, was extended to 2,905 metres in 2017. The airfield is equipped with night landing facilities and an Instrument Landing System (ILS), as well as navigational facilities like DVOR/Distance Measuring Equipment (DME) and a Non-Directional Beacon (NDB).