Mali's main airport, Modibo Keita International Airport, was formerly Bamako-Senou International Airport and renamed after Modibo Keita, who was was the first President of an Independent Mali and served between 1960-68. Modibo Keitais Airport is located approximately 9.3 miles south of Bamako, the capital of Mali and currently services 686,431 passengers a year. Cont/...
There are eleven other airports of significance in the country but none fly internationally. The main ones being Gao Airport, servicing Gao a city in Mali and the capital of the Gao Region located 200 miles east-southeast of Timbuktu on the River Niger; Kayes Airport, servicing the city of the same name in Western Mali on the Senegal River; Mopti Airport (Aka Ambodedjo Airport), serving Mopti near the town of Sevare and located in the Mopti Region that straddles central Mali; and Timbuktu Airport from where Sky Mali operates flights to Bamako and Mopti.
Bamako's Modibo Keita airport originally opened in 1974 and was home to the Compagnie Aerienne du Mali, which was rebranded as Air Mali in 2009, with its 'fleet' of three aircraft until it suspended operations in December 2012 after the outbreak of conflict in the country and a domestic airline was only re-established in 2020 with the launch of Sky Mali, a private carrier which currently serves a number of local destinations from its base at Bamako. In 2009 the airport started a period of redevelopment with the demolition of the existing air cargo building and construction of a new terminal together with an expansion of the runway allowing it to accommodate large aircraft such as the Boeing 747.
Today Modibo Keita airport is serviced by a number of operators including Air Algerie, Air Burkina, Air Cote d'Ivoire, Air France, Air Senegal, Ethiopian Arlines, Kenya Airways, and Turkish Airlines and has 13 check-in desks, a customs clearance office, duty-free area, gift shops, chemists, boutiques and restaurants and, of course, Wi-Fi. If you use the airport to stay in Bamako, there is a free bus service three times a day into the city or a taxi ride will cost just under ten pounds. In the video (below), you can make a virtual landing and see the country as you would for the first time if travelling there by air.