The Mauritanian private company Global Aviation is getting closer to its official entry into the Senegalese aviation market. Engaged for nearly three years in the process of obtaining its operating authorization, the company reached a decisive milestone with the completion, on Friday, December 26, 2025, of a demonstration flight on the Dakar-Ouagadougou route, under the supervision of inspectors from the Flight Safety Department of the National Civil Aviation and Meteorology Agency (ANACIM).
This technical step is one of the final requirements of the process leading to the obtaining of the Air Operator Certificate (AOC), a regulatory document authorizing a company to operate regular commercial flights. The demonstration flight aims to assess, in real conditions, the compliance of operational procedures, the competence of the crews, the airworthiness of the aircraft, as well as the overall organization of the operator in terms of aviation safety and security.
Already present in several countries in the sub-region – including Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Mali, Guinea, Niger, and Cape Verde – Global Aviation intends to make Senegal a new strategic platform for its West African development. For the company’s promoters, the stakes go beyond simple commercial logic. In West Africa, they argue, air mobility remains primarily a logistical and regional integration challenge, in spaces where distances, road constraints, and economic exchanges require reliable and structured transport solutions.
The carrier’s strategy is based on obtaining multiple national authorizations in order to establish itself permanently in local aviation ecosystems, in addition to the historical airlines. This approach is part of a context of reconfiguration of regional air transport, marked by the search for operational sovereignty, the strengthening of local capacities, and the improvement of intra-African connectivity.
Subject to the final conclusions of the inspections and the validation of the Senegalese authorities, the granting of the AOC would give Global Aviation access to one of the most dynamic aviation markets in the sub-region, while reinforcing its ambition to become a structuring actor in the West African sky.
