| Léopold Sédar Senghor International Airport Aéroport International Léopold Sédar Senghor |
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|---|---|---|---|
| IATA: DKR – ICAO: GOOY
DKR
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| Summary | |||
| Airport type | Public / Military | ||
| Serves | Dakar | ||
| Location | Yoff, Senegal | ||
| Elevation AMSL | 85 ft / 26 m | ||
| Website | |||
| Runways | |||
| Direction | Length | Surface | |
| m | ft | ||
| 18/36 | 3,490 | 11,450 | Asphalt |
| 03/21 | 1,500 | 4,921 | Asphalt |
| Statistics (2009) | |||
| Passengers | 1,500,000 | ||
| Source: Airport website,[1] DAFIF[2][3] | |||
Léopold Sédar Senghor International Airport (French: Aéroport International Léopold Sédar Senghor[1]) (IATA: DKR, ICAO: GOOY) is an international airport serving Dakar, the capital of Senegal. The airport is situated near the town of Yoff, north of Dakar. It was known as Dakar Yoff International Airport (French: Aéroport International de Dakar Yoff) until 9 October 1996,[1] when it was renamed in honor of Léopold Sédar Senghor, the first president of Senegal.
The airport can handle aircraft up to the size of the Boeing 747 jets. In 2009, the airport served about 1,500,000 passengers.[4]
In 2007, Patrick Smith, author of the Ask the Pilot column for Salon.com, called it the "World's Worst Airport", commenting that he found there "only squalor, an unnerving sense of confinement and to some extent danger".[5]
Construction on a replacement airport 45 km inland from Léopold Sédar Senghor has begun. Saudi Binladin Group is constructing the new airport, named after the first black African elected to France's parliament in 1914, Blaise Diagne. It should take 30 months to build and have an initial capacity of 3 million passengers a year - almost double the 1.7 million annual traffic handled by the existing airport.[6]
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During World War II, Dakar Airport was a key link in the United States Army Air Force Air Transport Command Natal-Dakar air route, which provided a transoceanic link between Brazil and French West Africa after 1942. Massive amounts of cargo were stored at Dakar, which were then transported along the North African Cairo-Dakar transport route for cargo, transiting aircraft and personnel. From Dakar, flights were made to Dakhla Airport, near Villa Cisneros in what was then Spanish Sahara, or to Atar Airport, depending on the load on the air route. In addition to being the western terminus of the North African route, Dakar was the northern terminus for the South African route, which transported personnel to Pretoria, South Africa, with numerous stopovers at Robertsfield (now Roberts International Airport), Liberia, the Belgian Congo and Northern Rhodesia.[7]
Before the introduction of long-range jets in the mid-1970s, it used to be an important stopover point for the routes between Europe and South America, together with the Canary Islands.
The airport was a Space Shuttle landing site until 1987, when it was determined that a dip in the runway could damage the shuttle upon landing.[8]
It used to be one of the five main hubs of the now defunct multi-national airline, Air Afrique.
Delta Air Lines started service on December 4, 2006 between Atlanta and Johannesburg, with an intermediate stop in Dakar. This stopover has since been removed. It currently serves Dakar nonstop from New York-JFK.
The head office of Sénégal Airlines is located on the airport property.[9] The head office of Agence Nationale de l'Aviation Civile du Sénégal is also on the airport property.[10]
At one time Air Sénégal International had its head office on the grounds of the airport.[11]
The airport is also home to the French Air Force's Dakar-Ouakam Air Base (Base aérienne Dakar-Ouakam; also known as Air Base 160, Base aérienne 160 Dakar-Ouakam). The Dakar-Ouakam Air Base forms the military section of the airport. In 2011 ETOM 00.055 will be disbanded and BA160 may become inactive.
| Airlines | Destinations |
|---|---|
| Afriqiyah Airways | Bamako, Tripoli |
| Air Algérie | Algiers |
| Air Burkina | Bamako, Ouagadougou |
| Air Europa | Madrid |
| Air France | Paris-Charles de Gaulle |
| Air Ivoire | Abidjan, Cotonou |
| Air Mali | Bamako |
| Air Nigeria | Accra, Banjul, Cotonou, Lagos |
| Arik Air | Banjul, Freetown, Lagos |
| Brussels Airlines | Brussels |
| Camairco | Douala |
| Corsairfly | Paris-Orly |
| Delta Air Lines | New York-JFK |
| Emirates | Dubai |
| Ethiopian Airlines | Addis Ababa, Lomé |
| Iberia | Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Madrid |
| Kenya Airways | Abidjan, Bamako, Nairobi |
| Mauritania Airlines International | Nouakchott |
| Meridiana | Milan-Malpensa, Rome Fiumicino, Paris Charles De Gaulle |
| Royal Air Maroc | Casablanca |
| Sénégal Airlines | Abidjan, Bamako, Banjul, Bissau, Cap Skirring, Conakry, Cotonou, Douala, Libreville, Niamey, Nouakchott, Ouagadougou, Praia, Ziguinchor |
| South African Airways | Johannesburg, Washington-Dulles |
| TACV | Banjul, Bissau, Freetown, Praia |
| TAP Portugal | Lisbon |
| Tunisair | Tunis |
| Turkish Airlines | Istanbul-Atatürk |
| XL Airways France | Paris-Orly |
| Airlines | Destinations |
|---|---|
| Air Méditerranée | Bordeaux, Marseille, Nantes, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Toulouse, Lyon |
| Luxair | Luxembourg |
| Airlines | Destinations |
|---|---|
| Air France Cargo | |
| Emirates SkyCargo | Campinas, Dubai, Frankfurt |
| Lufthansa Cargo | Buenos Aires-Ezeiza, Campinas, Frankfurt, Guadalajara |
| Med Airlines | Casablanca |
| ULS Airlines Cargo | |
| World Airways |
| Year | Total passengers | Change | Cargo (in tonnes) | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2001[12] | 1,279,028 | 23,387 | ||
| 2002[12] | 1,358,538 | +6,2% | 16,953 | -38,0% |
| 2003[12] | 1,482,726 | +9,1% | 17,051 | +0,6% |
| 2004[12] | 1,566,573 | +5,7 | 21,159 | +24,1% |
| 2005[12] | 1,605,010 | +2,5% | 24,795 | +17,2% |
| 2006[13] | 1,676,881 | +4,5% | 22,032 | -12,5% |
| 2007[14] | 1,821,956 | +8,7% | 24,771 | +12,4% |
| 2008[4] | 1,802,559 | -1,1% | 21,789 | -13,7% |
| 2009[4] | 1,554,546 | -13.8% | 21,572 | -1.0% |
Aircraft at Leopold Sedar Senghor International size to aircraft such as the Airbus A340-600 from South African Airways, and the Boeing 777-200 from Air France.
This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the Air Force Historical Research Agency.
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