Located at Hjellestad, then in the municipality of Fana, the airport was variously used by Norwegian Air Lines (DNL), Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS), Widerøe and West Norway Airlines for seaplane routes eastwards to Oslo, southwards to Haugesund and Stavanger, and northwards to Ålesund, Kristiansund and Trondheim.

Bergen Airport, Sandviken proved too small for DNL's routes with the introduction of the Short Sandringham, most due to ship traffic in the area.

Although it was close to the city center, this also meant that the airport's runway took up central parts of Byfjorden.

The operations were distributed, as the air traffic control was located at Herdla Airport on Askøy.

The airport was scheduled for completion for 1 June 1948, in time for the summer season operations, but it did not open until 23 August.

The plans included building a causeway to the island of Dronningen, which would have cost several million Norwegian krone.

Instead they flew passengers to Stavanger by land planes and onwards with West Norway Airlines to Sandviken, who took over the route from Widerøe.

The terminal building and docks were demolished in the late 1950s and all that remains today is the café and the flag pole.

[1] Ship traffic near Hjellestad had to be alerted in case of incoming flights; this was announced through the hoisting of a black and yellow ball on the flag pole at the control tower.