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.
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.