There are two airports in Dakar. They are Leopold Sedar Senghor International Airport and the DSS-Blaise Diagne International Airport with Blaise Diagne now the city's main airport as Leopold Sedar Senghor was unable to provide the required capacity. Named after Blaise Diagne, a former Senegalese-French political leader and mayor of Dakar, the new airport, significantly funded by the Saudis and located some 27 miles east of Dakar, opened for scheduled operations on 7th December 2017, albeit in six years late and ten years in construction but hey, this is African time! Dakar's orginal airport was originally known as Dakar Yoff International Airport until 9th October 1996 when it was was renamed in honour of the first president of Senegal, Leopold Sedar Senghor. It had been in heavy use during the Second World War when it served as a vital link in the United States Army Air Force Air Transport command but became best known in more recent years for the number of hawkers who set upon passengers landing there; hawkers whose activities were ignored by police and airport officials, who themselves are often accused of taking passenger's belongings during security checks or imposing fines for non-offences and pocketing the monies paid! In fact an eminent pilot noted that at Dakar airport you would find "only squalor, an unnerving sense of confinement and to some extent danger".
Today Senghor Airport only services charter flights and cargo services, but not regular passenger flights whereas the new airport can handle almost double the 1.7 million annual traffic handled by the old Dakar airport. Many carriers fly in and out of Blaise Diagne including Air Cote d'Ivoire, Air Burkina, Air France, Air Senegal, Brussels Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Emirates, Ethiopian Airlines, Kenya Airways, TUI Airways, Tunisair and Turkish Airlines amongst other smaller operators. The video (above) shows a flight landing at Blaise Diagne and also shows the breathtaking approach to Senegal over the Atlantic Ocean.
Information about Dakar International Airport, also known as Blaise Diagne International Airport after a former Senegalese-French political leader and mayor of Dakar, together with a virtual landing video.
