<h2 class="blog-hed2 pb-lg-4 pb-3 text-lg-center">History Presidente Nicolau Lobato International Airport</h2>
<p class="blog-para">The airport was built prior to World War II by the colonial administration of the then Portuguese Timor.</p>
<p class="blog-para">Initially, it had an 800 m-long (2,600 ft) runway.: 112  It also soon became an operating base for Transportes A&eacute;reos de Timor (TAT), which was founded in July 1939 as the colony's national airline.</p>
<p class="blog-para">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.</p>
<p class="blog-para">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.: 176  In October 1941, the Japanese government announced plans to introduce regular air services between Tokyo and Dili, beginning the next month.</p>
<p class="blog-para">All of these flights were operated by flying boats, not by land-based aircraft needing to use a landing strip.: 176&ndash;177  At that time, Dili did not have the facilities required to handle Qantas's de Havilland D.H.86 land-based aircraft.: 131  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&ndash;1945.: 175&ndash;177  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.</p>
<p class="blog-para">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.</p>
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<p><img class="img-fluid p-lg-0 rounded w-100" title="Presidente Nicolau Lobato  Airport" src="../../main/img/airport/pn/1.webp" alt="Presidente Nicolau Lobato Airport" width="950px" height="500px"></p>