Presidente Nicolau Lobato Airport

Presidente Nicolau Lobato International Airport
Characteristics
ICAO code	WPDL
IATA code	DIL
Coordinates	8 ° 32 '48 " S , 125 ° 31' 29" E Coordinates: 8 ° 32 '48 " S , 125 ° 31' 29" E
Height above MSL	8 m (26 ft )
Transport links
Distance from the city center	4 km west of Dili
Local transport	bus
Basic data
operator	East Timor Civil Aviation Division
Start-and runway
08/26	2509 m × 55 m asphalt

The airport is located in the north-west of the city in the Madohi district

The Presidente Nicolau Lobato Airport ( IATA code : DIL , ICAO code : WPDL , formerly Comoro ) is the capital airport of Dili , East Timor . It was named after Nicolau dos Reis Lobato , the country's first prime minister and second president , who perished fighting the Indonesian occupation. The airport is located in Dili 's Madohi district (until 2017 part of the Sucos Comoro ). Larger machines than the Boeing 737cannot fly to the airport because of its runway, which is only 1,849 meters long. You have to go to the older Baucau Airport (IATA code: BCH) near Baucau .

history

The hall of the Transportes Aéreos de Timor in colonial times

The airport has existed since the Portuguese colonial times. The colonial buildings were designed by the architect José Manuel Galhardo Zilhão . The first Dilis airport was in Bairro Pite . It was later used as a helipad and is now the East Timor’s presidential palace .

As a result of the unrest in East Timor in 2006 , Australian troops occupied the airport. One of the largest refugee camps in the country was located on its premises until 2009.

Airlines and Connections

The Airnorth (IATA Code: TL) has been flying the Darwin (Australia) –Dili route and back since January 18, 2000 , now every day in two hours with an Embraer . The route is even served twice on two days a week.

Sriwijaya Air flies daily from Denpasar in Bali (Indonesia) to Dili. The subsidiary NAM Air was added in 2015 and Citilink also flies to Bali.

Since August 1st, 2008 Air Timor (formerly Austasia Airlines) offered the route from Singapore to Dili and back twice a week. An Airbus A319 from Silk Air was used for the route . From October 25, 2014, the Denpasar - Dili connection was added, which Air Timor denied with Garuda Indonesia . The route was flown daily with a Boeing 737-500 , but was discontinued from January 10, 2017 due to unprofitability. In 2019, Silk Air ended its contract with Air Timor, so the last flight on the route took place on March 30th. Since October 31, 2019, Air Timor has been serving the Singapore-Dili route with an Airbus A319 from Drukair .

The Merpati Nusantara Airlines , with a Boeing 737-200 offering flights to Denpasar, introduced in February 2014 to operate.

Since June 2017 there has been a flight connection with a two-propeller machine from the authority of the Zona Espesial Ekonomiko Sosial no Merkadu (ZEESM) to Pante Macassar ( Oe-Cusse Ambeno ), with a flight taking around an hour.

From December 2017 to February 2018 Air Timor offered flights to Kupang with aircraft from TransNusa Air Services . Since June 14, 2019, TransNusa has been flying the route again in cooperation with Air Timor.