Early years

The airport, originally located in the suburb of Brackel, was first served by commercial flights in 1925 by Aero Lloyd, which operated flights to Paris. By the business year 1927/1928, service had expanded to 2,589 commercial flights annually. During World War II the airport was used as a German air base, and was subsequently used by the British Royal Air Force. Service to Dortmund was not recommenced when German commercial air service was restarted in 1955. In 1960, the civil airfield was relocated to Dortmund-Wickede. The old airport was abandoned and occupied by British forces until the 1990s.

Little service

Over the next decades Düsseldorf Airport and Cologne Bonn Airport were the dominant commercial airports in the Rhine-Ruhr Area. Additionally Hannover Airport also covered some of the air travel needs of this region. Furthermore, the 257-km (160-mile) Sauerlandlinie opened in the late 1960s, connecting Dortmund with Frankfurt Airport in under two hours by car.

Commercial service was restored in 1979 with daily flights to Munich by Reise- und Industrieflug. Nuremberg and Stuttgart followed shortly afterwards. Following German Reunification in 1990, Dresden, Leipzig, Berlin, and London were added to the flight schedule. Reise- und Industrieflug and Nürnberger Flugdienst merged in 1990 and Eurowings was formed, which is still based in Dortmund.

Construction was started in 1998, and completed in 2000 on a new replacement terminal. This multi-level terminal prepared the airport for its resurgence.

Since 2000

From late 2000 onwards, Dortmund Airport has experienced a drastic increase in air traffic. In the 1990s weekly service had been generally restricted to a few turboprop flights to destinations within Germany, as well as occasional charter flights to warm-weather destinations. Since 2000, several new airlines have commenced service to Dortmund, many with mainline jets since after the completation of the new terminal and the expansion of the runway of the airport. Most of the air traffic today is offered by low cost airlines operating Boeing 737 or Airbus A320 family series aircraft to warm-weather destinations and VFR-driven destinations in Eastern Europe.

The first larger carrier at Dortmund Airport was Air Berlin, which began flights to London, Milan, and Vienna in 2002, supplementing its leisure route portfolio to the Mediterranean. easyJet commenced services to Dortmund in 2004, and Germanwings followed in 2007. Air Berlin ceased most non-leisure routes from Dortmund again in 2005, while easyJet cancelled four out of its five destinations in 2012.

Since 2006 the airport has been carrying the name "Dortmund Airport 21", in reference to the fact that Dortmund's utility company, DSW21, is its major shareholder. The airport's master plan consists of the following elements: Increasing normal operating hours by one hour at night (to 23:00h), with an additional one-hour window in the morning and at night for exceptions, lengthening the runway to 2,800 m (9,200 ft), expanding the terminal and its infrastructure, improving the motorway connections and directly connecting the airport to mass transit.

At one time Eurowings had its headquarters, the Dortmund Administrative Center (Verwaltungsstandort Dortmund), at the airport. It has been relocated to Düsseldorf in 2010.

In October 2014, Air Berlin announced it was leaving Dortmund Airport entirely, cancelling their last remaining summer seasonal route to Palma de Mallorca. The airline had shut down several leisure routes from the airport in 2012.

As with easyJet in the 2000s, other low-cost carriers started opening routes from Dortmund Airport. Ryanair has progressively added new routes from Dortmund, mostly to destinations around the Mediterranean and the UK. From 2013 to 2015, Spanish low-cost airline Vueling offered a short-lived, four weekly service to Barcelona. However, Wizz Air has been the most significant contributor to the airport's resurgence. The Hungarian low-cost airline began servicing the airport in the mid 2000s by operating several routes to Eastern Europe, in large parts due to the Ruhr's significant Slavic community. In June 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Wizzair announced that Dortmund Airport would become its 33rd base, being the first in Germany. However, only one year later, Wizz Air announced the closure of their Dortmund base which led to the termination of several routes.

In October 2024, Ryanair announced the termination of all routes at three German airports including Dortmund, citing high operational costs.

In December 2024, Eurowings also announced it would downsize its operations in Dortmund, terminating the year-round service to Munich as well as not resuming four seasonal destinations. In October 2025, Eurowings subsequently announced the immediate closure of its base at Dortmund Airport as of the same month, cutting four of five remaining destinations to and from the airport except Palma de Mallorca.