Departure
96%
vs 95% ▲ 1
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Modibo Keita International Airport, formerly Bamako-Sénou International Airport, is Mali's principal gateway, lying some 15 kilometres south of the capital, Bamako. A joint civil-military field named for Mali's first president, it hosts a single long, lit hard-surface runway with an ILS approach and handles the bulk of the country's international, regional and cargo traffic.
Modibo Keita International Airport serves Bamako, the capital of Mali, and is operated by Aéroports du Mali (ADM) under the oversight of the Malian Ministry of Equipment and Transport. It is a joint public/military facility, sharing its site with Air Base 101 of the Malian Air Force. For a simulator pilot it offers a substantial single-runway international airport in West Africa, with ILS guidance, full ATC coverage and a mix of African and intercontinental airline traffic, alongside military and cargo movements.
The airport sits in the Bamako Region of Mali, approximately 15 kilometres south of Bamako city centre, at coordinates 12.5379N, -7.9433W. It is served by an Area Control frequency and a control tower, indicating that the field lies within controlled airspace with radar or procedural approach control provided from Bamako ACC. The airport is directly adjacent to Air Base 101, home to the Malian Air Force, so pilots should expect mixed civil and military traffic in the vicinity.
The airport has a single physical runway, 06/24, 10,475 feet long with a hard surface and runway lighting. An ILS is provided for approaches to runway 06. Field elevation is 1,217 feet.
Bamako provides Area Control on 119.1 MHz and Tower on 118.3 MHz, with an air-to-ground frequency also available on 667.3 MHz. An ILS serves runway 06 for instrument approaches.
The airport opened to traffic in 1974 as Bamako-Sénou International Airport and was later renamed Modibo Keita International Airport in honour of Mali's first president. Between 2007 and 2012 it underwent a major upgrade under a US$181 million project funded by the Millennium Challenge Corporation, a United States foreign aid agency, which improved and extended the runway and associated infrastructure. The airport has recorded several notable incidents over the decades, including a fatal Air Ivoire Douglas C-47 crash shortly after takeoff from runway 24 in 1971, a 1981 Dassault Falcon 20 crash on approach carrying an Algerian government minister, an Air Afrique Boeing 707 runway excursion in 1996, and a landing accident involving a cloud-seeding Beechcraft 200 in 2017. In September 2024 the airport was stormed by Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimin militants during coordinated attacks across Bamako, with aircraft reportedly destroyed and a World Food Programme aircraft damaged; a further attack by the same group occurred in April 2026 as part of a wider offensive.
Modibo Keita International Airport remains Mali's principal international airport, handling scheduled passenger services from carriers including Air Algerie, Air Burkina, Air Cote d'Ivoire, Air Senegal, ASKY Airlines, Corsair International, Ethiopian Airlines, Kenya Airways, Mauritania Airlines, Royal Air Maroc, Sky Mali, Tunisair and Turkish Airlines, alongside cargo operators such as DHL Aviation and Cargolux. It continues to function as a joint civil and military airfield, sharing its site with the Malian Air Force's Air Base 101.
