The airport opened in 1928 as Walker Airport, named after Hiram Walker, a 19th-century whiskey distiller and distributor of the Canadian Club brand. In 1967, the airport was added to the national portfolio of Canadian airports, citing its increasing importance as a regional airport hub for Southwestern Ontario, serving the areas between Detroit, Michigan, and London, Ontario, and well expanding beyond its original roots as a mere landing strip. In 2006, Serco Aviation Services, Inc., announced that they would request early termination of their airport management contract with the City of Windsor, as Windsor Airport had been losing around CAD$40,000 per month. The City of Windsor accepted Serco's withdrawal and prepared to operate the airport itself, but with a large deficit. On July 1, 2007, Serco handed over operations of the airport to the City of Windsor. Windsor City Council had approved of an ad hoc group to run the airport on behalf of the city, named "Your Quick Gateway (Windsor) Inc." (after the airport's ICAO call letters, YQG). This private organization was formed by the Windsor City Council, and was supposed to be a "temporary band-aid solution" until another operator was found. However, on November 14, The Windsor Star reported that since Your Quick Gateway had been so successful in managing the airport, posting a small profit in the process, it would be given permission to operate the facility indefinitely in this manner. The airport has additional land bounded by farm land along Division Road and Lauzon Parkway for future airport expansion. In 2012, The Windsor Star reported that airport traffic had increased over 160% since 2008, with over 250,000 passengers passing through the airport in 2012, its busiest year ever. This has widely been attributed to aggressive efforts to attract more flights to existing destinations, and to new destinations. In 2011, Porter Airlines began flying from Windsor to Toronto (Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport) and Porter declared that Windsor is one of its most successful new markets. However, 37% of the local market still uses Detroit Metro Airport as its airport of choice. In early October 2013, the City of Windsor announced it would invest $14.1 million into the airport to create a multi-modal cargo terminal. The project is expected to create approximately 105 jobs for the City of Windsor and has the potential to create thousands of jobs. The first tenant for the new cargo hub at Windsor Airport would be FedEx which signed a 20-year lease to run the hub and it was moved into the facility by December 1, 2015. In 2016 the airport handled 331,000 passengers. In June 2020, Air Canada ended its Windsor to Montreal service due to the financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada.