Quatro de Fevereiro International Airport

Quatro de Fevereiro Airport takes its name from February 4, 1961, the day the Luanda uprising began. That uprising started Angola's war of independence from Portugal. The airport dates back to the early colonial era, when it served as Luanda's civil airport and as a Portuguese military base. Its importance grew fast after Angola's independence in 1975, when it became the country's main gateway to the world.

Through the long civil war that followed, the airport was a lifeline. It handled aid flights, oil industry charters, and heavy Soviet built transport planes. The 2000s oil boom brought a sudden surge of traffic that the aging, overcrowded terminals could barely handle. TAAG Angola Airlines quickly built its whole network from here, flying to Lisbon, Porto, Sao Paulo, Johannesburg, and across southern Africa.

The airport gained a reputation among foreigners for crowding and slow paperwork. Because the site sits deep inside Luanda's dense sprawl, there was no room to expand. So Angola built a larger replacement outside the city. Dr. Antonio Agostinho Neto International Airport opened in November 2023. It took domestic flights first, then international ones. This ended Quatro de Fevereiro's run of more than fifty years as the country's front door.

The airport has one main runway, 05/23, close to the coast in Luanda's crowded city area. That location left no room for expansion, which is why the country eventually moved to a new site. Separate domestic and international terminals share a single apron, an area where planes park to load and unload passengers and cargo.

TAAG Angola Airlines is the dominant operator, alongside a heavy oil industry charter presence serving Cabinda and offshore fields. Cargo traffic has always been oversized compared with passenger numbers, showing imports for the energy sector. Since the new Agostinho Neto airport opened in 2023, flights have been moving there in stages.