The Italian colonial authorities built the airfield in 1922, the first of its kind in Italian Eritrea, as a military landing ground; from the 1930s it also took civil traffic as the Aeroporto Civile di Asmara and was named after Lieutenant Colonel Umberto Maddalena, a celebrated Italian aviator. On 7 July 1935 an agreement with Imperial Airways was signed to link Asmara with Khartoum. English Wikipedia gives the original name as "Aeroporto di Gura"; Gura was in fact a separate Italian air base south of Asmara, so that name should be treated with caution.

The airfield’s first war came in 1935. Italian Wikipedia lists the units that gathered here for the invasion of Ethiopia: the I Gruppo arrived on 22 January 1935, the III Brigata aerea on 6 September, the IV bomber group on 3 October and the 14th Stormo on 31 December, staying until 1 October 1936, when a northern air sector command took over. During the Second World War the airfield was nearly destroyed by British forces; it was rebuilt in the 1950s and reopened with flights to Addis Ababa.

The border war began in May 1998. On 5 June, as the Eritrea-Ethiopia Claims Commission recorded in its 2004 award, "the Parties exchanged airstrikes on airfields – at Asmara in Eritrea and Mekele in Ethiopia". Wikipedia, citing secondary literature, says Ethiopian aircraft attacked Asmara airport with bombs and napalm on 5 and 6 June. Accounts differ on which side struck first: Wikipedia’s narrative describes each raid as retaliation for the other, and the Commission simply calls it an exchange.

Eritrean air defences shot down one of the attacking aircraft. Its pilot, Bezabeh Petros, was captured; Wikipedia notes he had already been a prisoner in Eritrea once, after being shot down in the Derg’s air force during the War of Independence, and had been repatriated. Eritrea’s own raids on Mekele that day were flown by MB-339s; the Commission found that cluster bombs from the third and fourth sorties killed civilians near the Ayder School, and held Eritrea liable. Eritrea called the deaths an accident incidental to an attack on the airport.

The airport was bombed again on 29 May 2000, during the Ethiopian offensive that ended the war, according to Wikipedia, which cites BBC News; the original report could not be retrieved for this dataset, and no damage or casualty figures are published here. Peace with Ethiopia was not made until July 2018.

On 14 November 2020, in the second week of the Tigray war, Tigray forces launched rockets at Asmara; Wikipedia says the missiles missed. The Tigray regional government said it was aiming at military sites in Eritrea that it claimed were being used for air strikes on Tigray. Eritrea did not comment publicly in the sources reached. No damage at the airport has been confirmed in any source consulted.

Wikipedia describes Asmara as the main base of the Eritrean Air Force and the seat of its headquarters, and the Ministry of Information holds the service’s ceremonies here. On 31 May 2019 President Isaias Afwerki presented certificates to 250 cadets at the air force base in Asmara, trained in aircraft technology, air defence missile and radar systems, aviation theory and piloting.

The base has also hosted foreigners. The UN Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea reported that 16 Ukrainian air traffic control and radar technicians arrived in Asmara on 18 July 2016 under a two-year contract, while the UN arms embargo of 2009–2018 was in force. On 9 July 2024 Somalia’s state news agency reported that President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, with President Isaias, visited Somali National Army troops training at the Eritrean Air Force headquarters in Asmara. Neither government has published how many aircraft are kept here.