 During the renovation of the Ercan International Airport between September 2002 and May 2004, it served as Northern Cyprus' primary civilian airport.Geçitkale's unofficial ICAO code is LCGK.In the summer of 1998, amid rising tensions between Greece and Turkey, Turkey briefly stationed six F-16s at Geçitkale, in response to the former's positioning of four F-16s and two Lockheed C-130 Hercules at Paphos.