Early years

This airport was established at Löwental [de], north-east of Friedrichshafen in 1915 when the first hangars were constructed.^[5] The first scheduled passenger flights with Zeppelin airships started from here, long before they were relocated to Frankfurt/Zeppelinheim.

Friedrichshafen saw its first scheduled passenger flights in 1929 with Deutsche Luft Hansa services to Stuttgart-Böblingen Airport. By 1935 the flights were being made in Junkers Ju 52 passenger aircraft.^[6] Important engineering firms such as Maybach and Zahnradfabrik Friedrichshafen (ZF), subsidiaries of Luftschiffbau Zeppelin, were also founded in Friedrichshafen. During World War 2, their engines and gearboxes for tanks were flown directly from the airport to e.g. Kharkov, to replenish much-needed supplies during the Battle of Kursk.^[7]

Delta Air established the first successful post-war regional flights in 1978, flying to Stuttgart and Zürich.^[5] A new terminal building and runway were built between 1988 and 1994. Another new terminal was opened in 2010.^[5]

Develoment since the 2000s

InterSky, based at the airport, shut down its key route to Cologne Bonn Airport, which it had operated for seven years, in October 2010 due to tough competition from Germanwings which started flying the same route in spring 2010.^[8] Germanwings closed the route on 14 June 2015.^[9]

On 5 November 2015, InterSky ceased all operations due to financial difficulties, leading to the termination of domestic connections to Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne and Düsseldorf.^[10] In December 2015, it was announced that the airport might need financial support from its majority owners—the city of Friedrichshafen and the surrounding county—as the shutdown of InterSky—one of the airport's largest customers—led to financial difficulties.^[11]

Also in December 2015, VLM Airlines announced it would base three aircraft in Friedrichshafen to take over the domestic routes to Berlin, Düsseldorf and Hamburg previously provided by InterSky.^[12] However, VLM went bankrupt in June 2016, leaving these routes abandoned again.^[13] In 2019, Sun-Air of Scandinavia, a franchisee of British Airways announced routes from Friedrichshafen to Düsseldorf, Hamburg and Toulouse with only the Düsseldorf service remaining in 2021, partly due to the COVID-19 pandemic.^[14] In March 2024, Lufthansa terminated its flights to Frankfurt, leaving Friedrichshafen without domestic connections.^[15]

Car

Friedrichshafen can be reached from all directions via federal highways B30 and B31 which are connected to several motorways such as the A96 from Munich or the A13/A14 from Austria and Switzerland. The airport is signposted throughout the city. Taxis and rental car agencies are available at the terminal building.^[33]

Train

Friedrichshafen Airport has its own small railway station named Friedrichshafen Flughafen directly across from the terminal building. It is regularly served by local Bodensee-Oberschwaben-Bahn trains, which continue to the city center and the port of Friedrichshafen or the near town, Aulendorf.^[33]