Hamburg Helmut Schmidt Airport (HAM) was established on January 10, 1911, when private investors founded Hamburger Luftschiffhallen GmbH and set aside 45 hectares of grassland near the village of Fuhlsbüttel for an airship hangar capable of housing 2 Zeppelins. That founding date makes it the oldest commercial airport in the world still operating at its original location. The hangar itself opened in 1912, but the Zeppelin era was brief: scheduled fixed-wing flights began by 1920, and KLM that same year inaugurated the airport's first international route, linking Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Hamburg, and Copenhagen. In 1929 the first proper terminal opened, consolidating passenger handling, cargo, administration, and an observation deck under one roof.

The airport survived both world wars largely intact and played a supporting role during the Berlin Airlift of 1948-1949, serving as a staging point for supply flights into the blockaded city. By 1961, annual passenger numbers had crossed 1 million for the first time. A major modernization program called HAM21, launched in the early 1990s, produced a new Terminal 2 in 1993 and Terminal 1 in 2005, connected by an Airport Plaza housing centralized security. Architect Meinhard von Gerkan designed the terminal rooflines with a sweeping curvature referencing the wing of an aircraft. In November 2016 the airport was officially renamed in honor of Helmut Schmidt, former Federal Chancellor and lifelong Hamburg resident.

Today HAM is the largest international airport in northern Germany and the fifth busiest in the country, handling around 14.8 million passengers in 2024. Its catchment area extends into Schleswig-Holstein, Lower Saxony, and parts of Denmark. Eurowings operates the most routes from the airport, while carriers including Lufthansa, Emirates, and easyJet connect the city to destinations across Europe and the Middle East. The S1 S-Bahn line links the airport to Hamburg's central station in roughly 25 minutes.