Dili Airport , officially Presidente Nicolau Lobato International Airport (, ), and formerly Comoro Airport (), is an international airport serving Dili, the capital city of Timor-Leste. Since 2002, the airport has been named after Nicolau dos Reis Lobato (1946–1978), an East Timorese politician and national hero.
Location The airport is located in the suco of , which is part of the Dom Aleixo administrative post, in the western suburbs of Dili. It faces the Ombai Strait to its north and west, and the Comoro River to its east. Its runway (08/26) runs broadly east–west.
North of the airport, between the runway and Ombai Strait, is a residential zone that includes houses, a small area of agricultural land, a school, a church, and a cemetery. At the zone's northern edge is Beto Tasi Beach, a hidden stretch of shoreline known to the local community and also used for fishing.
History 1939–1975 The airport was built prior to World War II by the colonial administration of the then Portuguese Timor. Initially, it had an runway. It also soon became an operating base for Transportes Aéreos de Timor (TAT), which was founded in July 1939 as the colony's national airline.
In May 1939, the Portuguese government gave permission to Qantas to operate a Darwin to Dili flight. However, due to objections from the Japanese government, the Qantas services were postponed for more than a year. Eventually, in December 1940, the fortnightly Qantas Darwin to Batavia service was authorised to stop in Dili. The following month, Dili replaced Kupang as the stopover for Qantas's fortnightly Darwin to Singapore service. As compensation, Dai Nippon Airways of Japan was permitted to operate six trial flights from Palau to Dili between December 1940 and June 1941. In October 1941, the Japanese government announced plans to introduce regular air services between Tokyo and Dili, beginning the next month.
All of these flights were operated by flying boats, not by land-based aircraft needing to use a landing strip. At that time, Dili did not have the facilities required to handle Qantas's de Havilland D.H.86 land-based aircraft. The flying boat services have also been described as "pseudo-commercial", as they were of "negligible commercial importance", and used for "political penetration" in the lead-up to the Pacific War of 1941–1945. A radio room was set up in the Dili post office to communicate with the flying boats, using equipment supplied by the Australian Department of Civil Aviation.
Meanwhile, during 1940, TAT began flying a weekly land-based aircraft service between Dili and Kupang, using a de Havilland Dragon Rapide wet-leased from Koninklijke Nederlandsch-Indische Luchtvaart Maatschappij (KNILM), the airline of the then Dutch East Indies. Those services continued, again for political reasons, even after April 1941, by which time TAT was six months behind in paying the lease fees and salaries of the pilot and mechanic.
On 17 December 1941, soon after the beginning of the Pacific War, Dutch and Australian forces landed in Dili, with the objective of occupying the neutral territory of Portuguese Timor "... to defend against Japanese aggression ..." The 2nd Australian Independent Company took control of the airport. By 17 February 1942, the Allies had changed their stance, and arrangements had been made for their forces in Dili to hand over to a reinforced Portuguese garrison. On 20 February 1942, however, an Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) invasion force landed to the west of the airport and captured it by 11:00 am. The radio equipment at the Dili post office was later smuggled out, to the 2nd Australian Independent Company, which by then had retreated to Timor's central mountains. Subsequently, the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service (IJAAF) used the airport as a military airfield, and between June 1942 and August 1944, it was bombed by Allied aircraft.
By the end of the Pacific War, the airport was disused and overgrown. Japanese forces continued to occupy it until 11 September 1945, when the garrison at Dili officially surrendered.
In post-war Portuguese Timor, Baucau Airport, which was opened in 1947, and was and still is equipped with a much longer runway, became the colony's main airport, including for international flights. Dili airport was used for domestic services.
As of 1969, TAT was flying from Dili to six other places in the colony.
In 1974 and 1975, TAT operated scheduled domestic services from Dili to Atauro, Baucau, , Oecusse and Suai. The company was also flying between Dili and Kupang in West Timor, Indonesia, once a week, using a Douglas DC-3 chartered from Merpati Nusantara Airlines.
1975–1999 During the Indonesian occupation after 1975, the airport at Baucau was placed under the control of the Indonesian National Armed Forces, and was closed to civilian traffic, although at least nominally it remained accessible to large civilian airliners. Dili airport became the territory's principal civilian airport.
In 1978, the Indonesian administration started work on rebuilding Dili airport, which it renamed as Comoro Airport (). The work included the construction of a new passenger terminal building (without any custom, immigration and quarantine (CIQ) facilities), and the lengthening of the runway to accommodate Fokker F28s. In October 1978, Indonesia's State-owned flag carrier, Garuda Indonesia, inaugurated a Jakarta–Dili–Jakarta service. The full itinerary, which, initially, was flown three times a week, was Jakarta–Yogyakarta–Denpasar/Bali–Dili–Kupang–Denpasar/Bali. Tickets could be sold only to passengers who had a 'letter of transit' approved by a 'proper authority'. The leg from Jakarta to Denpasar/Bali was operated by a McDonnell Douglas DC-9, and that from Denpasar/Bali to Kupang by a Fokker F28. A connecting flight from Denpasar/Bali back to Jakarta was flown by a Douglas DC-8.
The rebuilding work at the airport was completed in 1981. As of 1983, Garuda Indonesia was operating flights between Dili and both Jakarta and Surabaya, using Fokker F28s. For each of those flights, the route flown was via Kupang and Denpasar/Bali. In April 1983, another Indonesian State-owned airline, Merpati, started operating a Kupang–Dili––Covalima/Suai flight. As of 1985, that service was being flown twice a week, but it was later downgraded to one flight a week on a Dili–Covalima/Suai–Kupang routing, using an Indonesian-built CASA turboprop aircraft.
In 1992, the airport's runway was extended to , to facilitate operations by Boeing 737-200s. As of the mid-1990s, an average of 12 flights per week were being operated into the airport, by Merpati with McDonnell Douglas DC-9s and Boeing 737s, and also by Sempati Air, a private sector Indonesian airline, with Fokker 100s and Boeing 737s. At about that time, another Indonesian airline, Bouraq, also flew into Dili. As of May 1999, however, the only airline serving Dili and Timor-Leste was Merpati, with just three Boeing 737 flights each week, linking Dili with Jakarta via Denpasar/Bali, and with Kupang. The airport was capable of handling passenger and Lockheed C-130 Hercules aircraft, and helicopters, but its apron was rated unsuitable for high-pressure type airframes.
In the aftermath of the referendum on East Timorese independence held on 30 August 1999, systematic violence by paramilitary groups broke out in Dili and elsewhere in East Timor. Early the following month, all flights into Dili were suspended. Under international pressure, the President of Indonesia, B. J. Habibie, announced on 12 September 1999 that Indonesia would withdraw its soldiers from the territory, and allow an Australian-led international peacekeeping force, INTERFET, to enter.
Shortly after dawn on 20 September 1999, the INTERFET Response Force, consisting of members of the Australian Special Air Service Regiment, New Zealand Special Air Service and the British Special Boat Service, began arriving at Dili airport from Darwin in five RAAF and RNZAF C-130Hs, to a "benign" reception by the handful of remaining Indonesian soldiers. Although by then the airport terminal departure lounge had been wrecked, the VIP lounge was one of the few buildings in Dili still intact. The airport was quickly made safe enough to allow C-130Hs from Townsville, Queensland, to land with the 2nd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (2 RAR) and two M113 armoured personnel carriers from the 3rd/4th Cavalry Regiment. That day, C-130s flew 33 sorties and transported 1,500 troops to East Timor. A company of Gurkhas from the 2nd Battalion, Royal Gurkha Rifles, arrived in the early hours of 21 September 1999.
The following day, 22 September 1999, INTERFET secured the airport. Responsibility for its operation passed to No. 381 Expeditionary Combat Support Squadron RAAF, and No. 2 Airfield Defence Squadron RAAF provided security. In late 1999, Airnorth started operating thrice weekly charter flights between Darwin and Dili.
During the INTERFET operation, the United States Pacific Command (PACOM) and the US Army's Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP) arranged for two Mi-8 and two Mi-26 helicopters to be provided to East Timor together with air and maintenance crews. Operating those helicopters ashore in the upcoming monsoon season required the construction of concrete helipads at Dili airport, and East Timor lacked the facilities to produce the concrete. All the construction equipment required, along with trained operators, was therefore brought in. Between December 1999 and February 2000, the four helicopters flew 475 hours without mishap, carrying 6,400 passengers and of cargo.
2000–present
By 2000, the airport had suffered serious damage in general, due to inadequate maintenance followed by the destruction of equipment in 1999 and excessively heavy use in 1999/2000. On 28 February 2000, INTERFET handed over command of military operations to United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET), which also assumed responsibility for the administration of the territory. UNTAET then began a wide-ranging rehabilitation programme for Timor-Leste's ports and airports, and subsequently a longer-term sustainable development programme.
On 25 January 2000, Airnorth switched to regular commercial services between Darwin and Dili, with eleven return flights a week. Later that year, Merpati resumed flights to Dili from Kupang and Denpasar/Bali, and Qantas subsidiary Airlink began regular flights. By the end of 2000, the airport was again fully operational.
When Timor-Leste became independent in 2002, control of the airport was handed over to the new government of Timor-Leste, and the airport was also renamed, after Nicolau dos Reis Lobato, an East Timorese politician and national hero. In March 2005, Timor-Leste's first post-independence commercial airline, Kakoak, launched its inaugural flight, a twice weekly service from Dili to Kupang. It was operated using a CASA C-212 Aviocar chartered from Merpati.
In May 2006, the airport was temporarily placed under the control of the Australian Defence Force for the purposes of Operation Astute.
Between 2006 and 2018, annual aircraft movements and passenger volume at Dili steadily increased, from about 3,000 and 50,000, respectively, in 2006 to about 8,000 and 275,000, respectively, in 2018. More than 90% of the passenger volume was international movements.
Cargo tonnage at the airport increased from around 280 tons in 2006 to around 400 tons in 2012. From the latter year, however, following the cessation of the UN Integrated Mission in East Timor (UNMIT), and the closure of Merpati's Dili operations, the tonnage dropped to around 250 tons annually through to 2018.