Map - Cape Town International Airport (Cape Town International Airport)

Cape Town International Airport is the primary international airport serving the city of Cape Town, and is the second-busiest airport in South Africa and fourth-busiest in Africa. Located approximately 20 km from the city center, the airport was opened in 1954 to replace Cape Town's previous airport, Wingfield Aerodrome. Cape Town International Airport is the only airport in the Cape Town metropolitan area that offers scheduled passenger services. The airport has domestic and international terminals, linked by a common central terminal.

The airport has direct flights from South Africa's other two main urban areas, Johannesburg and Durban, as well as flights to smaller centers in South Africa. Internationally, it has direct flights to several destinations in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Europe and the United States. The air route between Cape Town and Johannesburg was the world's ninth-busiest air route in 2011 with an estimated 4.5 million passengers.

D.F. Malan Airport was opened in 1954, a year after Jan Smuts Airport (now OR Tambo International Airport) on the Witwatersrand, near Johannesburg, opened. The airport replaced Cape Town's previous airport, Wingfield Aerodrome. Originally named after the then South African prime minister, it initially offered two international flights: a direct flight to Britain and a second flight to Britain via Johannesburg. By 1977, the airport had acquired nonstop connectivity with South America, with Varig operating flights to Rio de Janeiro.

With the fall of apartheid in the early 1990s, ownership of the airport was transferred from the state to the newly formed Airports Company South Africa, and the airport was renamed to the politically neutral Cape Town International Airport. Additionally, South African Airways launched a route to North America in 1992, linking Cape Town to Miami. The destination of this flight later changed to Fort Lauderdale and finally to Atlanta.

The first years of the twenty-first century saw tremendous growth at the airport; from handling 6.2 million passengers per annum in 2004–05, the airport peaked at 8.4 million passengers per annum in 2007–08 before falling back to 7.8 million in 2008–09. On the other hand, South African Airways had terminated the flight to Atlanta by 2006. In 2011, Malaysia Airlines withdrew its service to Buenos Aires, which had begun in the 1990s.

In 2016, the airport saw a 29% increase in international arrivals; 2016 also saw the airport handle 10 million passengers per annum. Three years later, a new connection to North America commenced upon United Airlines' arrival from Newark.