Origins Before the Sarasota-Bradenton Airport was built, both Sarasota and Bradenton had their own airfields: Bradenton's
Bradenton Airport and Sarasota's
Lowe Field. Bradenton Airport was located on the southeast corner of 9th Street and 13th Avenue (near
LECOM Park) established somewhere between 1935 and 1937 being abandoned at an unknown point during World War 2. Lowe Field was dedicated on January 12, 1929 and ended up opening on March 12. It was Sarasota's first municipal airport, located on of land west of what was then Oriente Avenue, which is now known as Beneva Road, and north of Fruitville Road. National Airlines began flying out of the airfield on August 4, 1937. Flights were often canceled because the landing strip got too wet to land on, which led to National Airlines leaving later that year after Sarasota could not pay for building concrete runways. During World War II, Lowe Field was used by the Civil Air Patrol. After the war, most civilian operations at Lowe Field went to the Sarasota-Bradenton Airport, with the exception of student pilots, mosquito control programs, and crop dusters. The airport continued operating until 1961 when the owner sold the land.
Name origins In the 1940s, SRQ was known by its two-character designation, RS. By 1948, growth in aviation demand prompted
IATA to coordinate the assignment of three-character codes. The airport initially received the designation "SSO", a short-lived code subject to misinterpretation as the international distress signal,
SOS. SRQ was chosen, with "Q" serving as filler text. The airport's IATA airport code, "SRQ", is used as a general nickname for the city of Sarasota and Sarasota area, as exemplified by media outlets like
SRQ Magazine,
WSRQ radio, and numerous local businesses in the area that include SRQ in their names.
World War II In 1942, with the United States entering
World War 2, the airport was leased to the
Army Air Corps and became known as the
Sarasota Army Airfield. The Army Air Corps later added 250 acres making the airport 870 acres. The
97th Bombardment Group was the first group, being transferred from
MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa for training with
B-17 Flying Fortresses staying from March to May. The 97th also performed construction and maintenance, including the construction of barracks and runway repair. After the 97th left, the
92d Bombardment Group arrived for training and also performed construction work. Training was conducted as well on the base, with 70 pilots graduating on average every 30 days. After three years of use, the base officially closed and was transferred to civilian usage in 1947. Despite its transfer, the airport and its facilities deteriorated until the Florida Legislature passed the 1955 Sarasota Manatee Airport Authority Act. This act gave the airport more legal power and guidelines to operate.
Post-World War II expansion Island being loaded onto a
U. S. Airlines C-47, 1947
National Airlines was SRQ's first airline, moving from Lowe's Field by 1947. Cancer research institute
Jackson Memorial Laboratories considered establishing a laboratory on airport property. The extent of the plan is not known. It was known as
Sarasota-Bradenton Airport until 1956 when it got the word "international" added onto it toward the end becoming thus known as
Sarasota–Bradenton International Airport. By April 1957, OAG showed six NA departures a day. Construction started on a terminal building designed by
Paul Rudolph and locally known architect, John Cromwell, on August 18, 1958, and opening on May 2 the next year. with: a control tower, ticketing area, offices, gift shop, coffee shop, and a balcony for passengers to watch their planes arrive. In its opening year of 1959, the airport had roughly 22,000 annual passengers.
Eastern arrived in January 1961, along with an
air mail service as well. The airport's first jet flights were Eastern 727s in winter 1964–65 (though the longest runway was 5006 ft for a few years after that). By the 1960s the airport along with Eastern and National Airlines, welcomed two commuter airlines:
Executive in 1964 and
Florida Air in 1968. Executive established Sarasota as a maintenance base and later their headquarters from 1968 to 1971 and flew flights to Tampa and Fort Myers. On March 30, 1974, an armed man attempted to hijack a Boeing 727 from National Airlines. He brought two hostages with him and demanded to be flown out of the area. He was unsuccessful, as a maintenance worker onboard disarmed him. He was captured about four hours afterwards. He received two concurrent sentences, one for 15 years and another for 25. A commuter airline named
Sun Airlines had flights to several destinations from mid-1974 to mid-1975. The latter part of the decade introduced
North Central Airlines in 1978, and
Delta the following year. Next month, on March 2,
Jimmy Carter held a press conference at the airport before speaking to the public at adjacent
New College. Likely that same day,
Henry "Scoop" Jackson, another presidential candidate running on the Democratic ticket, hosted a campaign rally at the airport.
George Wallace also visited the airport two days later on March 4.
1980s and 1990s In the late 1970s and early 1980s, there was a controversial proposal to move the airport by both Sarasota County and Manatee County due to airport overcrowding. An opinion poll was held in 1970, with 66% of voters voting against a new airport. The proposal suggested making the facility into a
general aviation airport and constructing a replacement east of future
Interstate 75 within
Lakewood Ranch. Opposition to the airport also came from a local environmentalist, Gloria Rains, who was the head and founder of ManaSota-88, an environmental group. Rains would later oppose the development of Lakewood Ranch as well, but did like that natural features in the area were preserved. However, the airport authority struck down the idea in 1985. When a referendum was held in 1986 on the matter (as required under state law if they wanted to move the airport) it was struck down. Instead of building a new airport, the airport's facilities, in general, would be expanded. Work began in 1987 to build a new airport terminal along with areas for parking, ramp space and landscaping. The new terminal building opened on October 29, 1989. During the first day the new airport terminal was in operation, the
Sarasota Herald-Tribune reported that passengers and airline staff liked it. On its first day of operations the airport was still under construction and several problems were encountered: the computer system on the upstairs level security checkpoint area had glitches, along with problems being reported with the terminal's air conditioning. The rest of the project was finished by 1990.
September 11 attacks President George W. Bush aboard
Air Force One flew into the airport on the evening of September 10, 2001 from Jacksonville taking Bush to the Colony Beach and Tennis Resort located nearby on Longboat Key where President Bush was expected to visit
Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota the following day. Air Force One was at the airport on September 11, 2001. George W. Bush was at the Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota when
Andrew Card first informed him of the
September 11, 2001 attacks, at 9:05 AM. Bush left the school at 9:32 AM after making a statement about the attacks and returned to the airport at 9:44 AM.
Air Force One taxied out at 9:54 AM and took off from runway 14 at 9:55 AM, employing the emergency capability of the
VC-25 to perform a "rocket-like climb". It flew first to
Barksdale Air Force Base in
Louisiana. Despite this, Southwest Airlines began service to SRQ in February 2021.
Late 2010s and the 2020s Construction on a new aircraft control tower started in November 2015 and was finished in 2017. Starting in the late 2010s, the airport started to rapidly grow in passenger traffic in a move mostly credited to Allegiant beginning to service the airport. Before the
COVID-19 pandemic, the airport was one of the fastest growing in the United States. On December 19, 2019, a
GMC pickup truck crashed into the baggage claim, causing $250,000 in damage. The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in air traffic significantly declining similar to other airports in the United States, but it was among the least impacted airports nationally. Elite Airways expanded operations at the airport in 2021 when they started nonstop flights to
White Plains,
Martha's Vineyard,
Nantucket and
Portland, Maine on July 2. Passenger numbers in 2021 ended up being 70% higher than before the pandemic,
Avelo Airlines announced in August 2023 that a new flight would be added to
Wilmington, Delaware with service beginning in November and the first flight occurred on November 2. To accommodate for recent growth, the airport broke ground on a second concourse on March 27, 2023. The new concourse, known as Concourse A, opened in January 2025 with five gates, bar, café, a restaurant, and a marketplace. The addition of Concourse A is expected to increase passenger capacity by 2.5 million. Hurricane Milton caused significant damage to the airport, including losing the entire roof of Concourse B. On October 11, 2024, the airport stated that it would remain closed until October 16. ==Facilities==