Air Senegal’s maiden flight to New York, USA, took off on Wednesday night from Blaise Diagne International Airport in Diass (45 km from Dakar).
The young national airline launched in 2018 continues its steady growth. It has just materialized the service to the United States. The inaugural flight on Thursday, September 2 to New York aboard an Airbus A330-900 neo “marks an important critical step” in the development of the network, according to the company’s CEO, Ibrahima Kane.
The flight will also be expanded to Washington. The two American cities will now be entitled to two round-trip flights per week. As a major event for Air Senegal, this new service to the world’s leading power was delayed by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Senegal has reopened its air borders since July 2020 after four months of closure due to the health crisis. Despite the various developments of the disease, the authorities have not considered closing air traffic again.
This would have been contrary to the stated objective of making Dakar a “regional hub.” Already, despite the difficult context, the young national carrier is managing to serve other African and European capitals.
For the inaugural flight to the United States, all tickets were sold at a preferential rate of 479,000 CFA francs for the round trip. Air Senegal expects to carry approximately 42,000 passengers in its first year.
“These flights are not only for West Africans, but also for many Senegalese, as there is a strong community here in the United States. But also, in terms of the return of African-Americans to the continent and a whole tourism that has developed,” Mansour Diop, an expert in air transport explains on ‘Radio France Internationale’ (Rfi).
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