At the same time Lufthansa began offering scheduled flights to Frankfurt, and later to Cologne/Bonn, Munich, Copenhagen, Kaliningrad and Riga.

Based on that analysis, plans approved by the state administration of Schleswig-Holstein in March 2002 included an extension of the runway from 1300 m to 2100 m. This would have allowed jet aircraft to land at Kiel.

When the last route was cut on 23 December 2005, operation of the airport was suspended until 3 April 2006 and on 24 January 2006, the state's Secretary of Commerce announced that the extension plans were scrapped for good.

Cirrus Airlines operated scheduled flights to Munich from 2 May 2006 using a single DHC-8-100 aircraft, which was based in Kiel Airport.

Further, there are annual Internationale Flugtage (German for International Aviation Days) with air acrobatics, parachute jumps and displays of historic aeroplanes.

5 (German: Marinefliegergeschwader 5) was based at Kiel, using Sikorsky SH-3 Sea King helicopters for search and rescue operations flown from the airport.

German Air Force aircraft operating as fake targets for practice also depart from Kiel Airport.