Departure
98%
vs 95% ▲ 3
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Dakhla Airport lies on the Atlantic coast of Western Sahara, serving the city of Dakhla (formerly Villa Cisneros) with a single long paved runway suitable for airliners up to Boeing 737 size. Operated by Airports of Morocco and shared with the Royal Moroccan Air Force, it offers an ILS approach and VOR/DME navigation aids, making it a useful and historically interesting stop for a VFR or IFR pilot exploring the region.
Dakhla Airport serves the coastal city of Dakhla in Western Sahara, a territory administered by Morocco. It is a dual-use aerodrome, operated by the state-owned company Airports of Morocco while also hosting the Royal Moroccan Air Force. For a visiting sim pilot the field is notable for its long single runway, coastal desert setting where the Atlantic meets the Sahara, and a history stretching back to wartime trans-African ferry routes.
The airport sits on the Atlantic coast of Western Sahara, near the entrance to the city of Dakhla, on the peninsula that separates the ocean from the Dakhla lagoon. As an international aerodrome handling scheduled airline traffic it lies within controlled airspace appropriate to a public/military airport of this scale, though the sources consulted do not give the specific airspace classification or FIR boundaries.
Dakhla has a single physical runway, 03/21, measuring 9,848 feet on a hard surface. It is lit and equipped with an ILS on runway 03, making it capable of handling aircraft up to Boeing 737 size or smaller.
The tower frequency is TWR 118.1 MHz. The airport is equipped with VOR and DME navigation aids alongside the ILS serving runway 03.
The airport lies at the entrance to Dakhla city, on the strip of land where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Dakhla lagoon, giving pilots a distinctive coastal and lagoon shoreline as a visual reference when approaching from the west or south.
During the Second World War the airfield was used by the United States Army Air Forces Air Transport Command as a stopover on the Cairo-Dakar transport route, linking to Dakar Airport to the south and Agadir Airport to the north; the runway was later paved over in the 1960s under Francoist Spanish administration. In the post-war decades Spanish flag carrier Iberia operated regular scheduled flights into the airport, including daily services from Las Palmas in the winter of 1970-1971. In November 1949 a Savoia-Marchetti SM-95C operated by LATI was substantially damaged in a landing accident at the field, though all 17 occupants survived.
Today Dakhla Airport functions as a public airport operated by Airports of Morocco alongside continued use by the Royal Moroccan Air Force. It handles scheduled and charter services from carriers including Royal Air Maroc, Binter Canarias, Ryanair and Transavia, connecting Dakhla to destinations such as Agadir, Casablanca, Laayoune, Marrakesh, Paris-Orly, Rabat, Gran Canaria and Madrid. The field can accommodate aircraft up to Boeing 737 size, with parking space for one such aircraft.
