Departure
97%
vs 95% ▲ 2
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Roberts International Airport, also known as Robertsfield, is Liberia's principal international gateway, sited near Harbel in Margibi County some 35 miles from central Monrovia. Its single very long runway, built to World War II bomber standards, once gave Liberia the longest runway in Africa and today still handles wide-body jet services alongside a full ILS approach.
Roberts International Airport (ICAO: GLRB, IATA: ROB) is Liberia's busiest and most important aviation facility, serving Monrovia from its location near the town of Harbel in Margibi County, roughly 35 miles from the capital. Named after Joseph Jenkins Roberts, the country's first president, the airport is informally known as Robertsfield or simply RIA. For a visiting simulator pilot it is notable both for its exceptionally long runway, a legacy of its wartime origins, and for its role as the country's only scheduled international commercial gateway.
The airport lies near Harbel in Margibi County, about 35 miles (56 km) from Monrovia. It is Liberia's principal international airport and one of only two paved-runway fields in the country, the other being Spriggs Payne Airport closer to the city centre. Precise FIR and controlled airspace classification details are not covered in the available sources, but the field is served by its own approach, tower and ground frequencies as set out below.
Roberts International has a single physical runway, 04/22, of hard surface construction and lit. Runway 04 is 11,027 feet long and equipped with an ILS; the reciprocal direction, runway 22, is 9,823 feet long and lit but without ILS. Field elevation is 26 feet.
The airport is served by Roberts Approach on 124.5 MHz, Roberts Tower on 118.3 MHz, and Ground on 121.9 MHz. An air-to-ground voice frequency is also available on 345.2 MHz. Runway 04 is equipped with an ILS.
The airfield's origins lie in July 1941, when Pan American Airways began developing an airfield at Harbel under an arrangement with the U.S. War Department, with construction carried out by the Firestone Company. The field was intended as an alternate landing point on the South Atlantic air ferry route for aircraft being sent to British forces in the Near East, and its runway was built long enough for B-47 Stratojet bombers to land for refuelling, giving Liberia what was for many years the longest runway in Africa. President Franklin D. Roosevelt lunched with Liberian President Edwin J. Barclay at Roberts Field during his visit in January 1943, and from 1943 to 1945 the field served as an alternative base for 26 Squadron SAAF, which flew Vickers Wellington bombers on anti-submarine and convoy escort patrols over the Atlantic from their main base at Takoradi. From the end of the Second World War until 1985 the airport was administered and operated by Pan American World Airways under contract with Liberia's Ministry of Transport, and Monrovia became a key link in Pan Am's African network, typically an intermediate stop between Accra and Dakar. In the late 1970s and early 1980s the airport was Pan Am's principal African hub, with nonstop Boeing 747 service from New York JFK connecting onward to destinations such as Dakar, Accra, Abidjan, Lagos, Conakry, Nairobi and at times Johannesburg. A number of European carriers also served the airport from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s, including British Caledonian Airways with Boeing 707s, KLM with Douglas DC-8s, and Sabena, Swissair and UTA with McDonnell Douglas DC-10s. VARIG used the airport as a stop on flights between Brazil and Europe from the mid-1960s into the mid-1970s; a VARIG flight between Rome and Rio crashed at Monrovia in March 1967, remaining the worst aviation accident in Liberia's history. Nigeria Airways also used Robertsfield as a waystation on transatlantic routes from as early as 1966. On 13 January 1989 an Aeroflot Tupolev Tu-154 cargo aircraft overran the runway following a rejected takeoff; there were no fatalities, though the aircraft was written off. A commercial renaissance in the early 2010s, including a new Air Côte d'Ivoire service from Abidjan via Roberts International in early 2014, was checked by the downturn in global commodity prices from 2013-2014, which pressured Liberia's economy; Air France withdrew its service in mid-2014 citing lack of profitability. In May 2025 a private jet carrying Liberian President Joseph Boakai suffered a rough landing at the airport after its tyres burst, prompting the cancellation of overnight flights, though no injuries were reported.
Roberts International remains Liberia's busiest and most important airport, hosting the country's only scheduled commercial airline services, with connections to several major West African cities and, via Brussels Airlines, to Europe. The airport reportedly served around 228,000 passengers in 2018 and has undergone a major expansion including a new passenger terminal. Its 11,000-plus-foot runway was historically listed as an emergency landing site for the United States' Space Shuttle programme, underlining the scale of the field relative to typical regional traffic.
