The aerodrome was built in the 1920s, and was used for civil aviation including scheduled passenger traffic, starting in 1926 with service to Warsaw, later also to Krakow, Vienna via Brno.

Ground damage due to coal-mining activity eliminated the passenger traffic, and now only the sport use remains with infrequent general aviation arrivals and departures.

Katowice (321 thousand inhabitants, 4,5 million in nearby GOP conurbation) intended to transform its inner-city airport (runway length: 1110 metres, width: 30 metres) into a proper City-Airport (there is limited space for the enlargement of the landing strip to approx.

It is unclear how the proposed improvements are to be squared with the conditions which forced the cessation of passenger traffic in the first place.

As of summer 2007[update], work on fixing the aerodrome has stalled because of a court fight between its resident sport airclubs (aeroclubs) over the airfield's real estate (nominally owned by the city, but handed over to the airclubs in perpetual lease).