Departure
96%
vs 95% ▲ 1
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Léopold Sédar Senghor International Airport lies on the Cap-Vert peninsula at Yoff, on the northern edge of Dakar, and was for decades Senegal's principal gateway before commercial traffic shifted to Blaise Diagne International in 2017. It retains a full-length, ILS-equipped runway and a rich aviation history, from wartime transatlantic ferrying to Concorde refuelling stops, and today handles charter and cargo flights alongside a co-located French Air Force base.
Léopold Sédar Senghor International Airport (ICAO: GOOY) serves Dakar, the capital of Senegal, from a site at Yoff on the northern part of the Cap-Vert peninsula. Long the country's main international airport, it lost most scheduled passenger traffic when Blaise Diagne International opened in 2017, but it remains an active and historically significant field for a visiting VFR or IFR pilot, offering a long ILS runway, a shorter crosswind strip, and a mix of charter, cargo and limited domestic operations. The airfield also shares its site with a French Air Force base, adding a military character to its operations.
The airport sits on the Cap-Vert peninsula at Yoff, a northern suburb of Dakar, with its runways occupying a large area between the towns of Ouakam, Ngor, Mermoz and the SICAPs housing districts. Field elevation is 62 feet, at coordinates 14.7438 N, 17.4793 W. The site is shared with the French Air Force's Dakar-Ouakam Air Base (Base aérienne 160), which forms the military component of the airfield, so pilots can expect a mixed civil/military operating environment. Dakar Approach provides area control on 120.5 MHz.
The airport has two physical runways. The main runway, 18/36, is a hard-surfaced, lit strip listed at approximately 10,948 feet in the 18 direction and 11,423 feet in the 36 direction, with an ILS serving runway 36. A shorter crosswind runway, 03/21, is also hard-surfaced and lit, at 4,914 feet in length. The long runway is capable of handling wide-body jets and was historically used as a Space Shuttle contingency landing site.
Dakar Approach (callsign Dakar Approach) operates on 120.5 MHz. Dakar Tower operates on 118.1 MHz. Dakar Info is available on 129.5 MHz, with a further Dakar Info frequency on 345.2 MHz. The main runway, 36, is equipped with an ILS for instrument approaches.
Useful visual landmarks around the field include the surrounding suburbs of Yoff, Ouakam, Ngor, Mermoz and the SICAPs housing estates, which ring the airport on the Cap-Vert peninsula and help orient a pilot approaching from over the Atlantic coastline or from inland Dakar.
The airfield's origins trace back to Ouakam Airfield, which served Dakar in the 1920s and 1930s with airmail and Air France civilian services. By 1943 Ouakam was too small for heavier aircraft, and in 1944 Mullard Airfield, now Dakar Airport, was established; French Air Force operations moved there from Ouakam by the 1960s. During the Second World War the field was a key link in the United States Army Air Forces Air Transport Command's Natal-Dakar transatlantic route, connecting Brazil to French West Africa, and it also served as the western terminus of the North African Cairo-Dakar cargo route and the northern terminus of the route to Pretoria via Robertsfield in Liberia and the Belgian Congo. Before the introduction of long-range jets in the mid-1970s it was an important stopover between Europe and South America. From January 1976 to March 1982, Air France Concordes used the airport as a refuelling stop between Paris and Rio de Janeiro on Wednesdays and Sundays. It was also designated as a Space Shuttle landing site until 1987, when a dip in the runway was found to pose a risk to the orbiter. The airport was renamed on 9 October 1996 in honour of Léopold Sédar Senghor, Senegal's first president, having previously been known as Dakar-Yoff International Airport. It served as a hub for the multi-national carrier Air Afrique, hosted Aeroflot services from the 1970s until around 2000, and was used as a stopover by Delta Air Lines and South African Airways on long-haul African routes. Senegal Airlines was headquartered here before ceasing operations in April 2016. Construction of the replacement airport, Blaise Diagne International, began in 2007 some 45 kilometres inland, and it opened on 7 December 2017, taking over the bulk of scheduled passenger traffic.
Since Blaise Diagne International Airport opened in 2017, Léopold Sédar Senghor has handled charter flights and scheduled cargo services rather than the bulk of scheduled passenger traffic. In January 2024 Air Senegal launched flights to Saint-Louis from the field, and there are plans to develop it as a domestic hub for Air Senegal, with further routes to Kédougou, Tambacounda and Matam using Let L-410 aircraft. The airfield continues to share its site with the French Air Force's Dakar-Ouakam Air Base.
