Portland's first airport was the
Swan Island Municipal Airport, northwest of downtown Portland on the
Willamette River. The Port of Portland purchased and construction began in 1926.
Charles Lindbergh flew in and dedicated the new airfield in 1927. By 1935 it was becoming apparent to the Port of Portland that the airport was becoming obsolete. Portland International Airport was officially opened on October 13, 1940, initially as Portland-Columbia Airport.
Construction and early operations The Portland City Council purchased the present PDX site in 1936. It was bordered by the Columbia River in the north and the
Columbia Slough in the south. The city council issued US$300,000 and asked the Port of Portland to sponsor a US$1.3 million
Works Progress Administration (WPA) grant to develop the site into a "super airport". The project provided badly needed
Great Depression-era jobs. Construction of the airport steadily employed over 1,000 men, and was described by historian Neil Barker as "Portland's most significant public works improvement during the New Deal era". The WPA and Port of Portland faced difficulties in preparing the site for construction because the low-lying area was frequently covered by flood waters from the Columbia River. Workers covered the area with over of sand to help drain it of water, and constructed a series of dikes to control flooding. Two runways capable of serving the modern aircraft of the time were operational by 1941. In 1948 the entire airport grounds were flooded during the
Vanport Flood, forcing scheduled airline services to reroute to nearby
Troutdale Airport. The grounds were under water for several months.
New terminal (1950s) Portland's first jets were Pan Am 707-321s about October 1959. A new terminal opened in 1959, which for the most part serves as the present facility. By 1974, the airport was served by Braniff, Cascade, Continental, Eastern, Hughes Airwest, Northwest Orient, Pan Am, United and Western, and the Seattle route was served by seven airlines with aircraft as large as
Boeing 747s. In 1974, the south runway was extended to to service the newest jumbo jets. The terminal building was renovated and expanded in 1977.
Air Oregon started short-haul service from Portland following deregulation in 1978, and by 1979 had routes to seven other cities in Oregon. In April 1983, United Airlines began a flight from Chicago to Tokyo's Narita Airport that stopped in Seattle–Tacoma six days a week and in Portland once a week. The company operated the service with Boeing 747s. Meanwhile,
Delta Air Lines wanted to add Tokyo to its network, but it lacked aircraft that could fly there nonstop from its Atlanta base. Consequently, the company established a "Pacific gateway" in Portland, a small hub for routes to Asia. Delta began service from Portland to Tokyo in March 1987. By the 1980s, the terminal building began an extensive renovation in order to update PDX to meet future needs. The ticketing and baggage claim areas were renovated and expanded, and a new Concourse D for Alaska Airlines was added in 1986. Concourse E was first to be reconstructed in 1992, and featured PDX's first moving sidewalks. The Oregon Marketplace, a small shopping mall, was added in the former waiting areas behind the ticket counters. The early 1990s saw a food court and extension added to Concourse C, and the opening of the new Concourse D in 1994. Delta added domestic flights to Portland to feed the Asia routes. In 1995, the carrier offered nonstop service to Tokyo, Seoul, Nagoya, and Taipei, with the Taipei flight continuing on to Bangkok. It also flew to eight domestic cities, such as Atlanta, New York, and San Francisco. However, Delta faced obstacles to the success of its operation in Portland. These included the
1997 Asian financial crisis and complaints about the treatment of Asian passengers at the immigration facility in Portland, which led to the nickname "Deportland." Moreover, airlines were introducing more flights from the United States to Asia, allowing travelers to bypass the Portland hub.
Terminal redesign (2000s) The present H-shape of the PDX terminal, designed by
Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Partnership, was completed on September 10, 2001, when the new A, B and C concourses were finished. Probably the most stunning portion of PDX's interior, the new concourses reflect a Northwest theme, focusing heavily on the nearby Columbia River. A huge celebration was to be held the following weekend, but the
September 11 attacks interceded. The new concourses, designed to be public spaces, were closed to non-passengers. At the same time as the new concourses were opened,
TriMet, the metropolitan area's primary transit agency, extended its
MAX Red Line light rail service. The Red Line originally provided service as far as downtown Portland only, but in 2003 it was extended west to Beaverton. Prior to 2001, TriMet service to the airport consisted of bus route 72-82nd Avenue from 1970 to 1986, and route 12-Sandy Blvd. from 1986 to 2001.
Lufthansa started direct flights to Frankfurt in March 2003. The route was operated by Airbus A340s, and was discontinued in 2009. In June 2004, Northwest Airlines introduced nonstop service to its hub at Tokyo-Narita aboard a McDonnell Douglas DC-10. In order to funnel passengers from other American cities onto the flight, Northwest made use of its partnerships with four other carriers instead of adding its own domestic routes to Portland. This strategy was less costly than Delta's. After Northwest's merger with Delta 4 years later, the Tokyo service was retained until being cancelled in 2020 due to the global pandemic. Initially, a flight to
Haneda Airport was planned to resume in 2021 but was delayed repeatedly until Delta announced in Fall 2023 that it would be relinquishing this PDX slot and consolidating transpacific service from SEA instead. In August 2005, the
concourse connector was opened. This is a long hallway on the secure side of the airport that connects the A, B and C concourses to the D and E concourses on the other side of the airport. If there is a long line at the checkpoint at one end of the airport, passengers may use the other checkpoint and walk through the connector to their desired concourse. The connector closed permanently on January 5, 2021, to make room for terminal expansion. The
airport's carpet, installed in 1987, was designed to stylize the criss-crossing north and south runways. Beginning in 2014, a new design replaced the original pattern. In response, many residents created products to celebrate the carpet as a local icon. In December 2016, the Port of Portland renovated the security checkpoints and immigration facilities as part of its PDXNext project. This included the relocation and widening of the exit lanes by the security checkpoints and upgraded security on both sides of the terminal.
Terminal expansion (2020s) In the latter half of 2016, the Port of Portland and several airlines at PDX approved a project intended to balance the use of the terminal and concourses at Portland International Airport. The subsequent project extended Concourse E by and added 6 new gates to the facility. After the project,
Southwest Airlines relocated its operations from Concourse C to the newly expanded Concourse E, alongside
United Airlines. With the relocation of Southwest Airlines to Concourse E, Alaska Airlines,
American Airlines and
JetBlue Airways became the primary users of Concourses B and C. Construction on this project began in the spring of 2017 and opened to passengers on July 15, 2020. Concourse A was demolished in November 2019 due to the age and space of the structure and was replaced by an expanded Concourse B. The extension featured 4 jet bridges, 6 ground loading zones, and improved concession stands. All Horizon operations that operated out of Concourse A was temporarily moved to Concourse C until the expanded Concourse B was completed. The new concourse opened on December 8, 2021. In March 2020, the main terminal began a five-year expansion process to generate more open space in the pre-security area and an expansion of 150 feet toward the west. The concourse connector was closed in January 2021 and the Clocktower Plaza closed three months later to make room for the expansion. During construction, the remains of the concourse connector was reused for passengers to bypass the construction zone to get to concourses C and D. Construction of phase one of the new main terminal was expected to be complete by May 2024. One month before its scheduled opening, however, the opening date for the new terminal was delayed by three months due to construction incidents on site. Phase one of the new terminal opened to the public on August 14, 2024. In 2025,
Condé Nast Traveler named Portland International Airport one of "The World’s Most Beautiful Airports for 2025." Alaska Airlines began shifting connecting flights from Seattle to Portland in May 2025 as part of a strategy to use the latter as a reliever for overcrowding at Seattle–Tacoma. Portland International Airport redesigned exit pathways as part of the "PDX Next" project in April 2026, reducing overcrowding and improving passenger flow between secured gates and public areas. These changes included improved paths for moving across to baggage claim, parking and ride-shares via the north or south concourses. ==Facilities==