Key Takeaways
- Sal towers over the network. Amílcar Cabral International Airport (SID) on Sal serves around 44 regularly-served nonstop destinations, far more than any other Cape Verdean airport. It is the home hub of the national carrier, Cabo Verde Airlines, and the country's main international gateway.
- An archipelago wired together by short hops. Cape Verde is ten volcanic islands scattered about 570 km off West Africa, so flying is part of everyday life. Cabo Verde Airlines and Bestfly link the inhabited islands on short inter-island routes.
- A European beach-holiday market. Sal and Boa Vista live on charter and scheduled leisure flights from the UK, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal and Belgium. Their all-inclusive resorts drive most of the country's air traffic.
- One link to the United States, via Providence. Cabo Verde Airlines flies Praia and Sal to Providence, Rhode Island, the heart of the large Cape Verdean diaspora in New England. The Atlantic crossing is flown nonstop from Sal.
- We rank by regularly-served routes, not raw counts. Cape Verde's traffic is seasonal and leisure-heavy, so we rank airports by regularly-served destinations rather than raw nonstop totals. That gives a truer picture of which airports fly the same routes week in, week out.
Cape Verde (Cabo Verde) is an archipelago of ten volcanic islands strung across the Atlantic about 570 km off the coast of Senegal. With its people spread across nine inhabited islands and a deep diaspora overseas, the country leans heavily on aviation: a single dominant international hub on Sal, a busy capital airport at Praia, a pair of resort-island gateways, and a web of short inter-island hops flown by the national carrier Cabo Verde Airlines (formerly TACV) and Bestfly.
Below we map and rank Cape Verde’s airports by the number of nonstop destinations each one serves, drawn from live route data on AirportRoutes. We rank by regularly-served destinations, routes flown often enough to count as scheduled service, rather than raw nonstop totals. The figures come from observed flight data, a sample rather than a complete published timetable, so treat them as a guide to relative connectivity rather than official totals. One pattern stands out at once: it is Sal, not the capital, that is the country’s main gateway to the world.
Are there direct flights to the US from Cape Verde?
Yes, but only one. Cabo Verde Airlines runs the country’s sole scheduled link to the United States, a tag flight that operates Praia to Sal to Providence, Rhode Island (PVD). The long transatlantic leg is flown nonstop from Sal, the airline’s hub, while the short hop from Praia feeds passengers in from the capital. The route launched on 4 May 2026 and stepped up to twice weekly from 5 June 2026, flown by a Boeing 737 MAX 8. It is Cape Verde’s first scheduled service to North America since 2021.
Providence might look like an odd choice over nearby Boston, but it sits at the heart of one of the largest Cape Verdean communities in the world. Southern New England, Rhode Island together with southeastern Massachusetts around New Bedford, Brockton and Cape Cod, has drawn Cape Verdean migrants for generations, and the route is built as much around visiting friends and relatives as the growing beach-tourism trade. Travellers heading elsewhere in the US still connect through Lisbon, another European hub or, increasingly, Dakar in neighbouring Senegal.
Ranked
Major Airports in Cape Verde by Nonstop Destinations
Ranked by regularly-served nonstop destinations, busiest first.
| Airport | IATA | Nonstop | Region |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Sal | SID | 44 | Sal island (north-east) |
| 2. Praia | RAI | 12 | Santiago, capital (south) |
| 3. Boa Vista | BVC | 12 | Boa Vista island (east) |
| 4. São Vicente | VXE | 6 | Mindelo, north-west |
| 5. Maio | MMO | 1 | Maio island (south) |
| 6. São Nicolau | SNE | 0 | São Nicolau island (north) |
A closer look at Cape Verde’s airports
✈️ Sal (SID)
Amílcar Cabral International Airport sits beside Espargos in the north of flat, sun-baked Sal, the island that turned Cape Verde into a holiday destination. Named after the independence leader Amílcar Cabral, it is by a wide margin the busiest airport in the country and the home base of the national carrier, Cabo Verde Airlines.
SID reaches around 44 regularly-served nonstop destinations, the only genuinely international network in the archipelago, with scheduled and charter flights to Lisbon, Porto, Paris, Amsterdam, Manchester and a long list of European cities, plus West African links and the new transatlantic hop to Providence. It is Cape Verde’s main long-haul gateway and the hub through which most international visitors arrive.
Main airlines: Cabo Verde Airlines, TUI, Neos, Edelweiss Air, TAP Air Portugal. See the full route map for SID on AirportRoutes →
🏛️ Praia (RAI)
Nelson Mandela International Airport serves Praia, the national capital, on Santiago, the largest island. Opened in 2005 to replace the cramped old city airport, it is the country’s second-busiest airport and the main hub for domestic and West African flights.
RAI flies around 12 regularly-served nonstop destinations, a mix of inter-island routes to São Vicente, Sal, Fogo, Boa Vista and Maio, regional links to Dakar and the Azores, and European service to Lisbon on TAP Air Portugal and Cabo Verde Airlines. It is also one end of the new Providence tag flight, feeding the capital’s passengers onto the transatlantic leg from Sal.
Main airlines: Cabo Verde Airlines, TAP Air Portugal, Royal Air Maroc, easyJet, Transavia, ASKY Airlines. See the full route map for RAI on AirportRoutes →
🏖️ Boa Vista (BVC)
Aristides Pereira International Airport, near Rabil on the desert island of Boa Vista, is Cape Verde’s third-busiest airport and its second resort gateway. Renamed after the country’s first president, it exists almost entirely to serve the all-inclusive beach resorts that line the island’s long white-sand coast.
BVC handles around 12 regularly-served nonstop destinations, overwhelmingly European charter and low-cost leisure flights, with Manchester, London Gatwick, Paris, Birmingham, East Midlands and Lisbon among its busiest links, alongside the short hop to Sal. Traffic is highly seasonal, peaking in the European winter-sun season.
Main airlines: TUI, Cabo Verde Airlines, Transavia, easyJet, Luxair, Edelweiss Air. See the full route map for BVC on AirportRoutes →
🎶 São Vicente (VXE)
Cesária Évora Airport, near São Pedro on São Vicente, takes its name from the island’s most famous daughter, the barefoot diva Cesária Évora. It is the gateway to Mindelo, Cape Verde’s cultural capital and liveliest port city, and the jumping-off point for the dramatic hiking island of Santo Antão, reached by ferry across the channel.
VXE serves around 6 regularly-served nonstop destinations, a blend of inter-island flights to Santiago, Sal and São Nicolau and a handful of international routes to Lisbon, Porto, Paris and seasonal Marrakech. It is the busiest of the northern Barlavento islands after Sal.
Main airlines: Cabo Verde Airlines, TAP Air Portugal, TUI, Transavia, Edelweiss Air, easyJet. See the full route map for VXE on AirportRoutes →
🏝️ Maio (MMO)
Maio Airport serves the small, quiet island of Maio, just east of Santiago, known for its empty beaches and salt pans. It is one of the country’s minor inter-island fields, with a single scheduled route.
MMO shows around one regularly-served destination in the data, the short domestic hop to Praia on Cabo Verde Airlines. There is no international service; visitors arrive via Santiago or, in season, by ferry.
Main airlines: Cabo Verde Airlines. See the full route map for MMO on AirportRoutes →
⛰️ São Nicolau (SNE)
Preguiça Airport serves mountainous São Nicolau, one of the greener and more rugged of the Barlavento islands. The airstrip sits on the south coast near the village of Preguiça, below the island’s main town of Ribeira Brava.
São Nicolau is the least-connected airport in our ranking. The route data shows no regularly-served scheduled destinations, a sign of how thin its network has become, with service limited to occasional inter-island flights to Sal and Praia. Many travellers reach the island by ferry instead.
Main airlines: Cabo Verde Airlines and other inter-island operators. See the full route map for SNE on AirportRoutes →
Airport rankings, nonstop-destination counts, served regions, airline lists and connections are drawn from live AirportRoutes route data (observed AeroAPI flight data, a sample rather than a complete published schedule; we use the regularly-served figure, which filters one-off observations). Airport history, the Providence route and notable facts are cross-checked against the cited references. The ranked map is a Mappr original.
Primary Data Source:
- AirportRoutes: major airports and routes, Cape Verde – Live route data: per-airport nonstop destinations, served cities, airlines and connections.
Reference:
- Wikipedia: Cape Verdean airports (Amílcar Cabral, Nelson Mandela, Aristides Pereira and others) – Airport history, location and notable facts referenced in the per-airport sections.
- Cabo Verde Airlines – The national flag carrier; network and the Praia to Sal to Providence service.
- Rhode Island T. F. Green International Airport (PVD) – Details and dates for the new nonstop Cabo Verde service to Providence.
- Locator maps: Google Maps / Google Static Maps – Per-airport location maps with airplane markers, generated via Google Static Maps.
Image Sources:
- Map by Mappr – Map of major airports in Cape Verde, a Mappr original built from AirportRoutes data and Natural Earth boundaries.
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