Airport type Public / Military Website aeroportdakar.com Elevation 26 m | Elevation AMSL 85 ft / 26 m 18/36 3,490 Code DKR Phone +221 33 820 83 03 | |
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Similar Onomo Dakar Airport H, Airport Hotel, Sargal Airport Hotel, King Fahd Palace Hotel | ||
Getting to dakar senegal arriving at l opold s dar senghor international airport
Léopold Sédar Senghor International Airport (French: Aéroport international Léopold-Sédar-Senghor, 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, when it was renamed in honor of Léopold Sédar Senghor, the first president of Senegal.
Contents
- Getting to dakar senegal arriving at l opold s dar senghor international airport
- History
- Other facilities
- Passenger
- Incidents
- References
The airport can handle jumbo jets, including the Airbus A340-600 from South African Airways, and the Boeing 777-200 from Air France. In 2015, the airport served about 1,986,000 passengers.
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". As of 2012, the airport itself had improved security but still suffered from a chaotic ground transport situation, with risky unlicensed taxis and aggressive touts.
Construction of a replacement airport 45 km inland from Léopold Sédar Senghor began in 2007. Saudi Binladin Group is constructing the new airport, named after the first black African elected to France's parliament in 1914, Blaise Diagne. It was initially expected to take 30 months to build and is designed for an initial capacity of 3 million passengers a year – almost double the 1.7 million annual traffic handled by the existing airport. The opening date has been delayed several times; the current projection was for December 2014, but the date of completion is unknown.
History
During World War II, Dakar Airport was a key link in the United States Army Air Forces 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.
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, along 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.
It used to be one of the five main hubs of the now defunct multi-national airline Air Afrique.
The airport has often been used as a stopover on flights between North America and Southern Africa. Delta Air Lines started service on 4 December 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. South African Airways used Dakar as a stopover with both its flights from Johannesburg to Washington and New York. The stopover for the New York-JFK flight has recently been removed, it is now a non-stop from Johannesburg to New York-JFK, operated by an Airbus A340-600. The Johannesburg to Washington-IAD flight still stops in Dakar, with that flight being South African Airways' service to Senegal, and West Africa as a region.
Senegal Airlines had a hub operation and their headquarters at the airport before its demise in April, 2016.
Other facilities
The head office of Agence Nationale de l'Aviation Civile du Sénégal is also on the airport property.
At one time Air Sénégal International had its head office on the grounds of the airport.
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 formed the military section of the airport.
Passenger
^1 : Turkish Airlines's flight from Istanbul-Atatürk to Dakar stops in Nouakchott, but the flight from Dakar to Istanbul is nonstop. Turkish Airlines does not have local traffic rights on the NKC – DKR sector.