The original airstrip near Tra'i Montana served Bonaire for less than a decade before the Americans arrived. In the second half of 1943, with World War II reshaping the Caribbean's strategic landscape, U.S. soldiers landed on Bonaire and their commander declared that a new airport was needed. Construction began in December 1943 at a new site near the coast, and by 1945 the facility that would become Flamingo Airport was operational. A small terminal served the modest passenger traffic of the postwar years. That same terminal would remain in use for three decades, until 1976, a reminder of how slowly change came to the island before tourism discovered it. The new runway built between 1953 and 1955 was the first major upgrade, and by 1960 it had reached 1,430 meters - long enough for propeller-driven airliners but not for the jets that were beginning to transform air travel everywhere else.

Bonaire's runway tells the story of the island's ambitions in concrete and asphalt. In 1970, it stretched to 1,750 meters, enough for a fully loaded McDonnell Douglas DC-9. Hotels were being built, and investors wanted charter flights from the United States on DC-8s and Boeing 707s. A new terminal opened in 1976, replacing the wartime-era building. By 1980, the runway had grown to 2,400 meters long and 45 meters wide. In October 2000, the final extension brought it to its current 2,880 meters - long enough for intercontinental widebodies. Today, KLM operates Airbus A330s on the Amsterdam route, stopping in Aruba before continuing to Bonaire. The airport that began as a sand-and-stone clearing now handles aircraft that weigh more than 200 tons. Each extension was pushed by hoteliers and investors who understood that runway length determines which tourists can reach you and from how far away.

Flamingo is the fourth-largest airport in the Dutch Caribbean, after Queen Beatrix on Aruba, Princess Juliana on Sint Maarten, and Curacao International. Within the Caribbean Netherlands - the special municipalities of Bonaire, Sint Eustatius, and Saba - it is the giant. Saba has Juancho E. Yrausquin, famous for one of the shortest commercial runways in the world. Flamingo, by contrast, is a proper international gateway. American Airlines, Delta, United, KLM, and TUI Airlines Netherlands all operate scheduled service. JetBlue began flying to Bonaire in November 2024. The small inter-island carriers - Divi Divi Air and EZAir - connect Bonaire to Curacao and Aruba with the kind of short hops that keep the ABC islands stitched together, their tiny prop planes sharing ramp space with transatlantic widebodies in a juxtaposition that captures the island's dual identity: remote Caribbean outpost and internationally connected resort destination.

Behind the terminal, the airport operates like a small industrial complex. Valero Bonaire Fuels supplies Jet A-1 around the clock from two storage tanks holding 630,000 gallons each, fed by a direct pipeline from a landing jetty where tankers arrive every other week from the Valero refinery on Aruba. Three ground handling companies - Air Handling Service Bonaire, Bonaire Air Services, and Progressive Air Services - divide the airlines among them, each with their own history of contracts won and lost as carriers have come and gone over the decades. The airport holds a Fire Category 9 rating, maintaining four crash tenders and a rapid-intervention unit. That equipment was tested in October 2009, when a Divi Divi Air flight ditched in the sea near Klein Bonaire after losing an engine. The pilot, Robert Mansell, died saving his nine passengers - a tragedy that unfolded within sight of the runway he never reached.

In 2008, Flamingo Airport adopted a fifteen-year master plan. Phase 1 - a complete runway renovation - finished in 2011. Phase 2A delivered a new air traffic control tower, replacing the old one torn down in mid-2017. Phases 2B and 3, promising a new apron with two taxiways and a new passenger terminal, remain in progress. The departure hall is being expanded to handle 500 passengers per hour instead of 300, a pragmatic response to growing traffic that cannot wait for the grand plan. The BonAeroClub and Falki Aviation Center still offer sightseeing flights and lessons in Cessna 172s from the general aviation ramp. For all its growth, Flamingo retains something of the character of that first landing strip near Tra'i Montana: an airport where island life and international ambition coexist, where a KLM A330 from Amsterdam parks alongside a Divi Divi Islander, and where the Caribbean wind carries the smell of jet fuel and salt water in equal measure.