The airport is an integral part of the Airbus-owned plant, and is exclusively used by that company for corporate, freight, test, and delivery flights with the final assembly of the A320 family being conducted here.

In 1933, the Blohm & Voss shipbuilding company in Hamburg decided to diversify into aircraft manufacture, believing that there would soon be a market for all-metal, long-range flying boats, especially with the German state airline Deutsche Luft Hansa.

Initially manufacturing was carried out at the Blohm & Voss shipbuilding works, with an inland airfield and final assembly building for landplanes at Wenzendorf Aircraft Factory.

The works were substantially damaged during World War II, and when manufacturing was revived there, using the previous HFB company identity, the facilities began a long series of progressive expansions and modernizations.

Between April 2006 and July 2007, the runway was extended at the southern end, increasing its length from 2,684 m to 3,183 m, in order to accommodate the then planned freight version of the Airbus A380.