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Félix-Houphouët-Boigny International Airport (DIAP/ABJ) is the principal gateway to Abidjan, Ivory Coast, sited at Port-Bouët on the coast southeast of the city. It is a major international hub for Air Côte d'Ivoire with a long single runway and ILS approach, making it a significant destination for simulator pilots flying West African routes.
Félix-Houphouët-Boigny International Airport serves Abidjan, Ivory Coast's largest city, and is named after the country's first president, Félix Houphouët-Boigny. It is operated by the private Ivorian company Aeria and functions as the main hub of Air Côte d'Ivoire, with connections across Africa, to the Middle East and to Europe. For a simulator pilot it offers a substantial single-runway international operation with an ILS approach, set on the lagoon coast at Port-Bouët, and a history that includes military use, civil unrest and international evacuation operations.
The airport lies at Port-Bouët, on the coast southeast of central Abidjan, in Ivory Coast. It sits within Ivorian controlled airspace with an area control service and approach/tower functions based at the field itself; the surrounding lagoon and coastline provide a distinctive backdrop for arriving traffic.
The airport has a single physical runway, 03/21, a hard-surfaced strip of 9,834 feet, lit in both directions and equipped with an ILS on runway 21.
Radio services at Abidjan include Area Control (ACC) on 121.1 MHz, Aerodrome Flight Information Service (AFIS) on 129.1 MHz, ATIS on 126.6 MHz, and Tower/VHF-DF on 118.1 MHz, with a miscellaneous frequency on 118.1 MHz also noted and an air-to-ground facility around 568 MHz. Runway 21 is served by an ILS.
The airport dates from military and public aviation origins and has long been Ivory Coast's principal air gateway, at one time handling passenger traffic exceeding one million travellers in the late 1990s before political and military turmoil in the country reduced activity. Air Afrique, once based in Abidjan, ceased operations in January 2002. During the French-Ivorian clashes of November 2004 the airport was looted and damaged before being secured by French troops and handed back to the Ivorian government later that month. On the night of 2 to 3 April 2011, amid the battle for Abidjan and the final assault on the presidential palace, French troops again took control of the airport to evacuate French nationals and other foreigners; it was returned to the Ivorian government after the civil war ended that April. Investment and modernisation programmes, paused for nearly a decade, resumed from 2011 onward as the economy recovered, including renovation of the international terminal and associated infrastructure under a long-term concession held by Aeria. On 14 October 2017, an Antonov An-26-100 operating a cargo flight from Ouagadougou crashed into the sea about 0.8 km south of the airport on approach, killing four of the ten occupants; investigators attributed the accident to underestimation of weather conditions, unfamiliarity with Abidjan and inadequate instrument monitoring.
The airport remains the busiest in Ivory Coast and the principal hub for Air Côte d'Ivoire, with more than twenty airlines serving over thirty destinations across Africa, the Middle East and Europe. It continues to be considered a strategic asset for military logistics and for the evacuation of foreign nationals in times of unrest.
