In keeping with the policy of the 1956 S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike government, the military bases held by the British in the pre-Independence era were taken over. The present Bandaranaike International Airport at Katunayake was a Royal Air Force base then. Titled 'RAF Negombo,' it was set up in 1942 to serve as an Air Force base during World War II. On November 1, 1957, it was handed over to the Royal Ceylon Air Force (RCyAF) and renamed Katunayake.

At that time Sri Lanka had one airport at Ratmalana just a few miles away from the capital city of Colombo.
It had limited facilities and when the air services began to expand and bigger airplanes had to be landed, the government started looking for a site to locate a bigger airport which could provide the services of an
international airport.

After successfully negotiating for financial aid from Canada, work commenced on building a new international airport at Katunayake during the time of Anil Moonesinghe, the Minister of Communications.
It took three years to build and the new airport was completed in 1967. Air Ceylon, as the National Carrier was then known, commenced international operations from it, using a Hawker Siddeley Trident and a leased BOAC BAC VC-10. The airport was also a Trans World Airlines (TWA) hub for a short time.
In 1970, Katunayake was named Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) to commemorate Prime Minister S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike. It was renamed Katunayake International Airport in 1977, when the
J. R. Jayewardene government came to power but was changed back to Bandaranaike International Airport in 1995.

In recent years, various expansion projects have been undertaken at Bandaranaike International Airport.
A pier with eight aero-bridges opened in November 2005, the first of its kind in Sri Lanka. Today the airport matches any other international airport with the facilities provided.

At the time the airport was being built, a part of it was left to house the Air Force. On May 7, 2007 the Sri Lankan Government decided to shift some major military aviation out of the space adjoining the airport to Hingurakgoda, paving the way for more civilian operations.

Things moved swiftly without any incidents at the Airport until May 3, 1986, when in an operation carried out by the LTTE, a bomb in an Air Lanka (the name of the national carrier had by then changed from Air Ceylon) Lockheed L-1011 Tri-Star 100 exploded while passengers were boarding for a short-hop flight to Male, in the Maldives. Fourteen people were killed, and the aeroplane was written off.

Another LTTE attack took place on July 24, 2001 when 14 members of the LTTE Black Tiger terrorist suicide squad infiltrated Katunayake air base, destroying eight military aircraft on the tarmac. They then moved to the civilian airport, destroying two Airbus aircraft and damaging three others. Seven government personnel were killed.

A third attack took place on March 25, 2007 when at midnight, Tamil Tigers bombed the Sri Lanka Air Force base adjoining the international airport. Three Air Force personnel were killed and 16 injured when light aircraft dropped two bombs, although no aircraft were damaged.

Passengers already on aircrafts were disembarked and led to a shelter, while others trying to reach the airport were turned away and approach roads closed. The airport was temporarily shut down following the incident, but normal flights resumed after three and a half hours.

Again, on April 27, 2007 the airport was closed, power cut to the city and anti-aircraft guns fired when suspicious aircraft were spotted in the area. The Bandaranaike International Airport is now managed by Airport & Aviation Services Sri Lanka functioning as a corporation under the Ministry of Ports & Aviation.