Perth Airport began in 1938, when the Western Australian government opened an aerodrome at Guildford, northeast of the city. It replaced the older Maylands field, which had become too small for growing traffic. The Royal Australian Air Force took over the site during the Second World War and expanded its runways. After the war, the airport kept growing steadily as air travel became far more common across the country.
After 1945, Perth grew as the western end of long trunk routes crossing the Nullarbor from the eastern states. An international terminal opened in 1986, and the airport was privatized under a long lease in 1997. The mining boom of the 2000s changed everything. Western Australia's fly-in fly-out workers, meaning staff flown in for shifts and flown home after, commute by air to remote iron ore and gas sites.
The most important moment came in March 2018, when Qantas began flying Perth nonstop to London Heathrow on a Boeing 787-9. It was the first ever scheduled nonstop passenger flight between Australia and Europe. Perth has since become a launch point for further ultra long-haul experiments. A multi-billion dollar program is now merging the airport's long-split terminals into one precinct, and a new runway is planned too.