The airport was built around the 1950s. It was made as a base for the
Indian Air Force (IAF). The base played a crucial role in the
Indo-Pakistani War of 1965. On 6 September 1965, the
Pakistan Air Force (PAF) attacked Indian bases at
Pathankot,
Halwara and Adampur. The attacks on Halwara and Adampur were failures. The strike group turned back before even reaching Adampur. On the next day (7 September 1965), the PAF
parachuted 135
Special Services Group (SSG) para-commandos at the same three Indian airfields (Halwara, Pathankot and Adampur). The
Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 on western front started with
Operation Chengiz Khan on 3 December 1971. The Pathankot base was hit and the runway was heavily damaged. Pathankot was covered by interceptors from Adampur. Following this first strikez during the time, it took the ground crew to repair its runway. During the
Kargil War, flying from Adampur, the mirages of
No. 7 Squadron IAF struck at Tigerhill, Muntho Dhalo and Tololing. In 2010s, the airport was considered by the
Government of Punjab and the
Ministry of Civil Aviation to develop the Adampur base into a commercial airport to boost connectivity and socio-economic development of
Jalandhar and adjoining regions. In 2017, the
Airports Authority of India (AAI) completed the construction of a new passenger terminal and began commercial operations, with daily and weekly flight services to
Delhi,
Mumbai and
Jaipur operated by
SpiceJet. However, until the end of 2019, the airline stopped all operations from the airport indefinitely, due to the wake of
COVID-19. In July 2023, SpiceJet and
Star Air announced that from November 2023, they will restart regular flight operations from the airport to five destinations–
Ghaziabad,
Bengaluru,
Kolkata,
Nanded and
Goa, under the
UDAN Scheme. On 10 May 2025, during the
2025 India-Pakistan conflict, the
Pakistan Armed Forces (PAF) launched drone and missile attacks on the Adampur air base, with
JF-17 Thunders reportedly firing CM-400AKG anti-radiation missiles aiming to take out the
S-400 Triumf air defense system deployed there. Indian media, citing satellite imagery shortly after the attack and visuals from Prime Minister
Narendra Modi's visit to the base on 13 May 2025, refuted Pakistani claims of any damage to the S-400. Pakistani media, which initially claimed that the S-400 was destroyed, later revised their account and claimed that the PAF had instead targeted the 96L6E Cheese Board radar, one of the units of the combined S-400 air defense system. ==Infrastructure==