Ben Gurion Airport opened in 1936 as Lydda Airport, built by the British Mandate authorities as a landplane base on the coastal plain southeast of Tel Aviv. It served as a vital Allied staging field during the Second World War. With Israel's independence in 1948 it became Lod Airport, home to the new national carrier El Al. It handled the mass immigration flights that shaped the young state. In 1973 it was renamed for David Ben-Gurion, Israel's founding prime minister, who had died weeks earlier.
The airport became synonymous with aviation security after attacks in the 1970s prompted Israel to develop the layered screening, profiling. Armored infrastructure that made it a global reference point. The landmark Terminal 3 opened in 2004 with its inverted-funnel fountain rotunda, concentrating international flights and freeing old Terminal 1 for low-cost and domestic use.
El Al, Arkia, and Israir base themselves here. Traffic set records as open-skies agreements brought European low-cost carriers and the Abraham Accords opened Gulf routes after 2020. Because it is essentially Israel's only major international gateway, its fortunes swing sharply with regional conflict and recovery cycles.