Nicosia International Airport

History

Nicosia was the principal airport for Cyprus from its initial construction in the 1930s as the Royal Air Force station RAF Nicosia until 1974. At first it acted principally as a military airport, and it is still owned by the British Ministry of Defence The landing strip was constructed in 1939 by the Shell Company and Pierides & Michaelides Ltd. Services were provided by Misrair with four-engined DH.86 aircraft.

During the Second World War the airport's facilities and runway were extended by local contractors Stelios Joannou and George Paraskevaides. American bombers used the runway in 1943–44 when returning from the allied bombings of the Romanian Ploieşti oil fields.

After the war commercial services were reintroduced, and by 1948 Misrair, BOAC, Cyprus Airways and MEA were providing regular services.

The facilities provided were limited, with three Nissen huts used as a terminal building housing Customs, Immigration, Civil Aviation, Signals, Traffic and Operational Services. Restaurant services were provided by the NAAFI.

In 1949 the first terminal building was designed and built by the Public Works Department at a cost of £50,000 and was opened in May of that year. The building was then extended together with the aircraft apron in 1959. The building was vacated in 1968 with the opening of the new terminal. The Nicosia Flying Club and other flying organisations continued to use the old building.

The RAF withdrew from the airfield in 1966 due to limited space brought on by vastly increasing civilian aircraft movements. On 27 March 1968 a modern new terminal, designed by the German company Dorsch und Gehrmann from Wiesbaden, and built by Cybarco, was opened, at a cost of £1,100,000 sterling, of which £500,000 was contributed by Britain. The new terminal could accommodate 800 passengers at one time and the parking apron eleven aircraft.

In June 1974 plans were in place for the terminal to be extended and the apron to be enlarged to 16 aircraft of which 2 places were to be for widebodied aircraft. But this was never to happen: on 15 July 1974 right wing Greek nationalists overthrew the democratically elected president of Cyprus, Archbishop Makarios. Nicosia Airport was briefly closed by the coupists, then used on 17 July 1974 to ferry troops from Greece to Cyprus to support the coup against Makarios. Only on the 18 July was it allowed to reopen to civilian traffic, becoming a site of chaotic scenes as holidaymakers and other foreign nationals tried to leave the island. Finally, on 20 July 1974, Turkey invaded Cyprus, bombing the airport heavily and forcing its permanent closure.

The leaders of the Greek Cypriot Community and Turkish Cypriot Community discussed reopening Nicosia International Airport at the beginning of 1975. After the leader of the Greek Cypriot community, Archbishop Makarios, had initially rejected the Turkish Cypriot proposal to reopen the airport to international traffic under joint control, agreement to reopen it was 'in principle' reached during the negotiations in Vienna from 28 April to 3 May 1975. However, discussions by a joint committee set up for that purpose were unproductive.

The last commercial airline flights out of Nicosia Airport took place in 1977 under UN Special Authorisation, when three of the remaining Cyprus Airways aircraft stranded there since the 1974 invasion were retrieved by British Airways engineers and flown to London. One of these, a Trident 2 is now on show at the Imperial War Museum Duxford.

With the Turkish invasion the airport was the scene of some of the heaviest fighting between Cypriot and Turkish forces, which led the United Nations Security Council to declare it a United Nations Protected Area (UNPA) during the conflict. This required both sides to withdraw at least 500 metres from the perimeter of the airport. With the ceasefire signed on 16 August 1974 Nicosia Airport became part of the United Nations controlled Buffer Zone separating the two communities on the island, and it has been inoperable as a fully functioning airport ever since. However, active United Nations helicopters are based at the site, it is the location of Blue Beret Camp which is used as the headquarters for the UN peace keeping mission in Cyprus UNFICYP and it is used as one of the sites for intercommunal peace talks. It is also the home to a number of recreational facilities for UN personnel.

Following the closure of Nicosia Airport a new airport, Larnaca International Airport (LCA), was opened in the Republic of Cyprus in 1975, and in Northern Cyprus the Ercan International Airport (ECN) was opened in 2004, both on former RAF airfields. Paphos International Airport (PFO) was also opened in the Republic of Cyprus in 1983.

There have been some plans for Nicosia Airport to be reopened under United Nations (UN) control as a goodwill measure, but so far neither the Greek nor the Turkish Cypriots have seriously pursued this option.

In 2013 Dr Michael Paraskos of the Cornaro Institute in Cyprus argued that with three other functioning airports in Cyprus the old Nicosia Airport would no longer be needed even in the event of a political settlement on the island. Instead he suggested it should be turned into a tax-free industrial zone, designed to attract foreign high tech firms, and employing Cypriots from both the Greek and Turkish communities on the island.

Incidents and accidents