Pampulha Airport was opened in 1933 as a support facility for passenger flights operated by the
Brazilian Air Force between
Rio de Janeiro and
Fortaleza. The first commercial operation started in 1936, when
Panair do Brasil was granted a concession to fly between Rio de Janeiro and Belo Horizonte. In 1943, the runway was extended to 1,500m x 45m, in 1953 to 1,700m, and finally in 1961 to 2,505m. With the great increase of traffic at Pampulha Airport, the facility became too small and unable to handle all operations. For this reason, the new
Tancredo Neves International Airport was built in the adjoining municipality of
Confins. The new facility was opened in March 1984. Due to the long distance between Belo Horizonte and Confins, Pampulha remained the airport of choice for most airlines, eventually becoming overcrowded, while Confins was under-used. In order to revert this scenario, in March 2005 the government of the state of
Minas Gerais with the support of agencies of the Federal government decided to restrict Pampulha to operations of aircraft with capacity of up to 50 passengers. In the months thereafter, most operations were forced to move to Confins and Pampulha gained a new vocation as a hub for regional flights and general aviation. On 31 August 2009, Infraero unveiled a BRL8.4 million (USD4.4 million; EUR3.1 million) investment plan to upgrade Pampulha Airport focusing on the preparations for the
2014 FIFA World Cup, which was held in Brazil, Belo Horizonte being one of the venue cities. The investment was used to build a new control tower, upgrade the general aviation hangars, and enlarge the apron. On June 30, 2019 the airport was closed for scheduled operations and since then it is dedicated to
general aviation, aircraft maintenance and flying schools operations. Between 1973 and 2020, the airport was operated by
Infraero. On June 17, 2020, the Federal Government signed and agreement to transfer the administration of the airport from Infraero to the Government of the State of
Minas Gerais. The transition period ended on December 31, 2020. On October 5, 2021,
CCR won a 30-year concession to operate the airport. On April 26, 2025 CCR was rebranded as Motiva. On November 18, 2025 the entire airports portfolio of Motiva was sold to the Mexican airport operator
ASUR. Motiva will cease to operate airports. On February 10, 2026 the transaction was still pending government approval. ==Airlines and destinations==