With the growing importance of airships for military purposes, a new airfield with hangars and barracks was opened in the north of Mannheim, where the Schönau district is located today.

[2] With its opening Mannheim became part of an important air track, running from north to south and vice versa.

In the late 1920s and early 1930s Deutsche Aero Lloyd operated cargo and passenger flights from Hamburg to Zürich stopping in Mannheim.

A Luft Hansa route map of the 1930s shows scheduled flights from Mannheim to Frankfurt via Darmstadt and other destinations, like Stuttgart, Saarbrücken and Konstanz.

The airfield was reopened to the public in 1958, but with the growing size of postwar aircraft, Mannheim-Neuostheim was no longer served by any major airline and mainly used for private flying.

In 1999 Cosmos Air was taken over by Cirrus Airlines, continuing the flights to Berlin-Tempelhof and opening new routes to Hamburg and Saarbrücken.

In October 2008 Cirrus Airlines started new direct flights from Mannheim to Munich, connecting the city to one of the Lufthansa main hubs.

[11] In August 2010, the Mannheim-Hamburg service celebrated its 10th anniversary, but due to hard competition coming from Frankfurt Airport on this route, Cirrus Airlines had to discontinue it on November 26, 2010.

On December 22, 2011, Cirrus Airlines decided to also end the last scheduled route to Berlin-Tegel, shortly before filing bankruptcy.

[12] Cirrus Technik also operated a maintenance facility for Dornier 328 turboprop aircraft,[13] which moved to Saarbrücken at the end of 2009.

With the introduction of the new JAR-OPS 2 regulation, strict weight restrictions have been imposed, allowing only smaller and lighter airplanes to land at MHG.

After a first accident involving a scheduled passenger flight on March 19, 2008, and the growing lack of airlines with the adequate equipment to fly into MHG, discussions about a relocation of the airport have regained political importance.

With its coming closure in 2015, Coleman Airfield is seen as a possible, but challenging alternative, as well as the airport of Speyer, where BASF has its corporate jets based.

[citation needed] The sand-lime brick designed terminal building, built by architect Prof. Peter Serini, opened in 1998.