There is a close correlation between airports and regional economic development, and ten-million-level airports drive the upgrading of the city’s industrial structure, improve the level of openness to the outside world, and become the engine of regional economic growth. Based on the panel data of 2010–2019 of 38 cities where ten-million-level airports are located, we constructed the fixed effect model and the mediation effect model, focusing on analyzing the influence of ten-million-level airports on regional economy and its functioning mechanism. The results of the empirical research show that ten-million-level airports have a significant effect on the regional economy, and every 1% increase in the workload of ten-million-level airports will drive the regional economy to grow by 0.59%. The positive effect of international trade is the main mechanism for ten-million-level airports to promote economic growth. Therefore, in the future, air transportation will play an increasingly important role in promoting international trade exchanges and driving regional economic growth.