Mostar Airport was opened for civilian air traffic in 1965, targeting domestic flights. Prior to 1965, Mostar was a local airport with a large concrete runway used by aircraft manufacturer SOKO for testing and delivering military aircraft. Military underground hangar was built here. Currently, the airport primarily serves charter flights for Catholics making the pilgrimage to nearby Medjugorje. The record number of 86,000 passengers was recorded in the year 1990. In 2012, the airport had a twofold increase in traffic, making it the second-busiest in Bosnia and Herzegovina after Sarajevo airport. In November 2017, German low-cost carrier Eurowings was the first airline to schedule regular flights from Mostar, namely to Düsseldorf and Stuttgart, serving both with two weekly flights from May 2018 respectively. On 3 May 2018, the first landing of a Croatia Airlines aircraft marked the introduction of the twice weekly nonstop Mostar-Zagreb service. The COVID-19 pandemic has severely disrupted the airports operations, causing Croatia Airlines and Eurowings not to continue their services as planned, therefore losing all scheduled traffic. Also, numerous irregularities in the spending of airport funds and illegally elected administration were noticed. The airport received 1,000,000 Bosnia and Herzegovina convertible marks (€500,000) from the government in March 2021 as an aid to overcome the Covid-crisis. On 8 September 2021, Croatia Airlines operated a charter flight from Shannon in Ireland to Mostar Airport, marking the resumption of any civilian traffic in Mostar since March 2020. Airport management also started negotiating flights with low cost airline Wizz Air to sustain direct flights to the diaspora in Germany and Sweden, tough without any outcome. In 2023, Mostar gained two new direct links to Italy, with AeroItalia launching flights to the secondary airport of Forlì and Greek charter airline Lumiwings connecting Mostar with Foggia. Both routes were discontinued after just one season.