Blaise Diagne International Airport

Blaise Diagne International Airport is the principal airport of Senegal and the main international gateway to francophone West Africa outside of Abidjan and Lagos, handling roughly 2.8 million passengers annually. Named for Blaise Diagne, the first African deputy elected to the French National Assembly, DSS opened in December 2017 as a full replacement for the older Léopold Sédar Senghor International Airport (DKR) in central Dakar, which was closed to commercial traffic and converted to military and presidential use. The shift is unusual among major global airports: DSS is one of the few cases in the 21st century of an entire national capital relocating all civil aviation to a newly built greenfield airport. DSS is a hub for flag carrier Air Sénégal, which operates A319, A330-900neo, and ATR-72 equipment on domestic, regional African, and intercontinental routes to Paris, Marseille, and Lyon. The airport is also served by Air France, Brussels Airlines, TAP Portugal, Iberia, Turkish, Royal Air Maroc, Tunisair, Qatar Airways, Ethiopian, Asky, and a number of regional African operators. Corsair and ASL Airlines France serve the Senegalese diaspora market in France. A single runway, 01/19, measures 11,483 ft (3,500 m) and accommodates widebody operations including 777, A330, and 787. The modern terminal, designed by Turkish firm Summa and Saudi engineering partner LAS, provides 35 check-in desks and 10 jet bridges. DSS sits 47 km (29 mi) east of central Dakar in the town of Diass, a location chosen to reduce the noise impact of the old in-city airport and to anchor a planned Special Integrated Economic Zone. The Ila Touba toll motorway connects the airport to Dakar.