From 1959 to 2003, it was the home base of German Air Force Jagdbombergeschwader 34 ("Allgäu"), which flew the F-84F Thunderstreak, from 1964 onward the F-104 Starfighter and from 1987 the Tornado IDS.

Since 2004, it has been serving Memmingen and the Allgäu as a civilian airport, though its catchment area covers a much wider range of places such as Augsburg, Lake Constance, and western Austria.

It serves as a base for Ryanair and features flights to European leisure and some metropolitan destinations and handled 3.2 million passengers in 2024.

The 7261st munitions squadron of the USAF was responsible for the weapons with over 100 soldiers stationed in their own barracks, housing estate, with their own care facilities and school.

[citation needed] Scheduled flights to the 2005 Hanover Fair were cancelled due to lack of demand.

[citation needed] In 2006, scheduled flights to Dortmund and Rostock were planned but cancelled because the carrier became insolvent.

In autumn 2006, Luftfahrtgesellschaft Walter offered chartered flights to Dortmund for two months, during which only 100 passengers were carried.

In May 2015, InterSky announced that it would have a presence at Memmingen Airport by October 2015 consisting of one aircraft, adding a new route to Cologne and increasing frequencies on the already existing services to Berlin and Hamburg.

[9] However, on 6 November 2015, InterSky ceased all operations due to financial difficulties, leaving Memmingen again without any domestic connections.

[11] In March 2017, Ryanair announced plans to establish its second Bavarian base (after Nuremberg Airport) in Memmingen from October 2017 consisting of one aircraft and seven additional routes.

[17] In early 2019 the planned expansion works began to widen the runway and expand the handling facilities with the airport being closed for several weeks in September of the same year.

[23] It is operated by Flughafen Memmingen GmbH, a limited partnership of mostly local, medium-sized companies and public shares.

[24] In October 2021, a vastly expanded arrivals hall and baggage claim area was inaugurated[25] followed by another annex containing new gates 6 and 7 in 2024.

Originally, the runway was only 30 metres (98 ft) wide with accordingly narrow taxiways due to its former use as a facility for jet fighter aircraft.

[19] Two aprons provide parking spaces for six mid-sized aircraft such as the Airbus A320 and Boeing 737 at a time as well as some smaller business jets.