On 6 September 1965, the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) attacked Indian bases at Pathankot, Halwara and Adampur.

[citation needed] On the next day (7 September 1965), the PAF parachuted 135 Special Services Group (SSG) para-commandos[4] at the same three Indian airfields (Halwara, Pathankot and Adampur).

Only ten commandos were able to return to Pakistan,[5] while the rest were taken as prisoners of war (including one of the commanders of the operations, Major Khalid Butt).

In July 2023, SpiceJet and Star Air announced that from November 2023, they will restart regular flight operations from the airport to five destinations–Ghaziabad, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Nanded and Goa, under the UDAN Scheme.

[8] The Airports Authority of India (AAI) built a passenger terminal at a cost of ₹ 18 crore[9] at Kandola village of Jalandhar district, adjoining to the air force base to facilitate commercial civil aviation and connectivity, as well as development, in 2017.

The Government of India cleared the techno-feasibility report for setting up the passenger terminal in July 2015, after AAI had inspected the proposed site of 50 acres of land, after receiving No Objection Certificate (NOC) from the Indian Air Force.

The air force station operates the MiG-29UPG variant, after recently completed overhauls to the older B/UB fleet.

After a break of three years, in July 2023, two airlines, SpiceJet and Star Air, have announced that they will start direct flights from November 2023 from the airport to five destinations–Ghaziabad, Bangalore, Nanded, Kolkata and Goa, under the UDAN Scheme.