Aviation Park Group (APG) is based at the airport and provides handling and related services to private clients.

APG has a longterm tenancy agreement with Airbus UK, giving sole handling rights at the site.

PA474 rolled off the production line at the Vickers-Armstrongs Broughton factory at Hawarden Airfield on 31 May 1945, just after the war in Europe came to an end, so she was prepared for use against the Japanese as part of the 'Tiger Force'.

48 Maintenance Unit was formed at Hawarden on 1 September 1939 and until 1 July 1957 stored, maintained and scrapped military aircraft, including Horsa gliders, de Havilland Mosquitoes, Handley Page Halifaxes and Vickers Wellingtons.

During the Battle of Britain in September 1940, it flew operational flights over north west England against Luftwaffe raids on Liverpool and against Broughton itself, claiming three enemy aircraft shot down one of which was brought down by the C.O.

A number of experienced pilots were posted to the unit as instructors, some to rest after front-line operations, especially after the Battle of France such as Flt.

Luckily for him his lawyer managed to get him off the charge due to the technicality that Hawarden's three mile radius low-flying area included the dog track!

In November 1942 57 O.T.U moved to RAF Eshott in Northumberland as the unit's training syllabus requirements had outgrown the capacity of such a busy airfield, especially with the number of aircraft being flight-tested after being produced at the factory.

moved in almost immediately after the departure of 57's Spitfires, bringing their Hurricanes, Tomahawks and Mustang Is from Old Sarum where they had been engaged in instruction in the art of Army Cooperation, much of which involved low-level reconnaissance and photography.

Its pilots ferried thousands of military aircraft from the factories and maintenance facilities at Hawarden and elsewhere to and from RAF and Naval squadrons throughout the UK.

The airport land includes a football ground named The Airfield, home of Welsh Premier League side Airbus UK Broughton F.C., which has movable floodlights due to its proximity to the runway.

Airbus previously considered the A330-300 and A340-500 to require too much of the limited 1,663 m (5,460 ft) runway 04 at Hawarden,[7] and chose the A330-200 as the base of a new version of the Beluga.

Air Wales began operations at Cardiff Airport on 6 December 1977 using a 9-seater Piper PA-31 Navajo Chieftain (G-BWAL) on its twice-daily scheduled route from Cardiff to Hawarden Airport, Flintshire – a destination which was billed as "Chester" (even though Hawarden is in Wales and Chester is the other side of the Welsh/English border).

Clwyd County Council provided the company with a start-up grant of £10,000 on the grounds that the service would improve communications between North East Wales and Cardiff.

Notwithstanding the confined space of the aircraft, complimentary coffee was routinely served in-flight to passengers by the First Officer.