Berbera Airport (Berbera International Airport)

Berbera International Airport (IATA: BBO, ICAO: HCMI) is a public and military-use airfield at Berbera, a city in the Sahil region of Somaliland. Somaliland is a self-declared republic that the international community recognises as part of Somalia. The airport is owned by the Somaliland Ministry of Civil Aviation and Airports Development.

Soviet involvement at Berbera began in 1962, when the Soviet Union agreed to help the Somali Republic build port facilities and a military base there. The base was completed in 1969, and sixteen Soviet ships called at Berbera in 1971. In the mid-1970s the Soviet Union built the airfield's runway to counter the United States military presence in the region. Around the time of the 1977 Ogaden War between Somalia and Ethiopia, the Soviets withdrew from Berbera and from Somalia as a whole. In 1980 the United States entered with a US$40 million investment. NASA rented the airfield for US$40 million per year and designated it an emergency landing site for the Space Shuttle from 1980 until 1991, when the government of President Siad Barre collapsed and Somaliland declared independence.

In 2012 Somaliland's Ministry of Civil Aviation contracted Tekleberhan Ambaye Construction Plc (TACON), in joint venture with Afro-Tsion Contracting and Investment Company, to build a new terminal and perimeter fence. President Ahmed Mohamed Mohamoud inaugurated both in March 2015. In February 2017 both houses of the Somaliland parliament accepted a bid from the government of the United Arab Emirates for the UAE Armed Forces to establish a military base in Berbera and to redevelop the airport. After a visit by President Muse Bihi Abdi to the UAE in 2019, the UAE undertook the airport's restoration. Dubai-based Transport Infrastructure Services Limited (TISL) carried out the work, and the airport reopened to international passengers on 20 November 2021.

The terminal occupies a 3,200 m² plot and contains public address and communication equipment, baggage transfer, checkpoints, security screening, a water tanker and scales. The perimeter fence is 12 km long.

As of November 2021, Ethiopian Airlines operated scheduled flights to the airport. African Express Airways and Daallo Airlines previously flew domestic routes and a small number of international routes within Africa from Berbera.