The airfield opened in 2005 and serves as the center of the Dronning Maud Land Air Network (DROMLAN), a multinational cooperation to use Troll as an all-year hub to provide intercontinental traffic to Antarctica and onwards to the various research stations using aircraft suitable for inter-Antarctic operations.

Intercontinental flights normally operate from Cape Town International Airport using Ilyushin Il-76, C-130 Hercules, P-3 Orion, Boeing 767 and similar, long-range aircraft.

This includes storing all fuel in barrels and large tanks placed on special mats which absorb liquids, to avoid spills.

Because it is located south of the Antarctic Circle, Troll has midnight sun in the summer and polar night during the winter.

The participating countries are Belgium, Finland, Germany, India, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Russia, South Africa, Sweden and United Kingdom.

[8] Services are operated to Aboa (Finnish), Dome F (Japanese), Halley (British), Kohnen (German), Maitri (Indian), Neumayer (German), Novolazarevskaya (Russian), Princess Elisabeth (Belgian), SANAE IV (South African), Showa (Japanese), Tor (Norwegian) and Wasa (Swedish).

Jutulsessen was chosen as the location, in part because it provided a base nunatak for the research station and at the same time was close to blue ice for the runway.

[11] At the time, all cargo and passengers to Troll had to either be transported by ship, or flown in via the airport at the Russian base Novolazarevskaya or Henriksenskjera.

[9] In the late 1990s, the Norwegian Polar Institute took an initiative to establish DROMLAN in cooperation with eleven other countries who operate research facilities in Queen Maud Land.

The cooperation has resulted in the availability of larger aircraft more suited for research, through coordinated search and rescue operations between the participating countries.