The airport was built as an American military air base during World War II and named Coolidge Airfield after Capt. Hamilton Coolidge (1895-1918), a United States Army Air Service pilot killed in World War I. A few years after the war, the airfield was turned over to the government of Antigua to become a civil airport. It was known as Coolidge International Airport until 1985, when it was named in honor of Sir Vere Cornwall Bird (1910-1999), the first prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda.
In December 2005, the Antigua and Barbuda Millennium Airport Corporation announced it would invite tenders to construct the first phase of a new passenger terminal designed to serve the airport for 30 years.
Incidents
On 17 September 1965, a Pan Am Boeing 707-121B en route from Fort de France, Martinique, to St. John's struck Chance Peak on Montserrat, an island to the southwest of Antigua, killing all 30 aboard. The pilot mistakenly believed he was descending into Antigua. As a result, a VHF omnirange (VOR) transmitter was installed at the St. John's airport.
LIAT (Anguilla, Bridgetown, Dominica, Grenada, Guadaloupe, Guyana, Saint Croix, Saint Kitts, Saint Lucia, San Juan PR, Saint Vincent, Sint Maarten, Tortola, Montserrat, Nevis, Santo Domingo, Trinidad)