The airport was one of the first in New Zealand, and also one of the first to accommodate turboprop aircraft.

The airfield gained attention in 1928 when the Blenheim Borough Council prepared land and built a temporary hangar at Woodbourne Farm for an important visitor - pioneering aviator Sir Charles Kingsford Smith and his Fokker trimotor monoplane, Southern Cross.

Kingsford Smith and his crew of three used the field as their departure point for the return leg of their historic trans-Tasman crossing in 1928.

But the Southern Cross was not the first famous plane to land in Blenheim. In 1920, the first flight across Raukawa/Cook Strait touched down on a Dillons Point farm, with Captain Euan Dickson carrying New Zealand’s first air mail between the South and North Islands aboard his Avro 504K.

The Royal New Zealand Air Force built a base at Woodbourne during World War 2. RNZAF Base Woodbourne remains today as a training and heavy maintenance facility, and shares the airport with civilian services, including Airbus. The terminal building was extended in 2014/15 to cope with larger passenger numbers and larger aircraft.

Air New Zealand, Sounds Air and charter airlines all operate from the airport.