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In March 2005, the new Praia international airport on Santiago Island will commence direct flights with Lisbon (flight time will be under 4 hours) and be quickly augmented by direct routes to Amsterdam and Paris (under 6 hours). The new airport will accommodate mid-sized aircraft (such as Airbus 320 and 319 and Boeing 757, 767 and 737 for routes to northern Euope). Flights from London will take a little over 5.5 hours.

The Cape Verde Islands comprise the nearest islands to Europe within the tropics. Flight-times to Cape Verde are therefore comparatively short compared to other island destinations within the tropics such as in the Caribbean or the Seychelles which one could argue take about twice as long to fly to. The capital, Praia, on Santiago Island is around 1,600 km (1000 miles) south of the Canary Islands and 800 km (500 miles) south of the Tropic of Cancer. The west coast of Africa (Senegal) is about 500 km (300 miles) away.

TACV, the national airline, and TAP-Air Portugal, have announced that they plan to operate direct flights between Praia and Lisbon as soon as the new airport is open. An "open skies" policy is now in force, permitting other airlines to fly to Cape Verde thus creating price competition and reducing air fares. Charter airlines such as Volare and Azzura presently connect Milan and Rome with Sal airport. The German charter airline Condor connects Frankfurt with Sal. Air Luxor operates significantly cheaper air fares on its charter flights between Portugal and Sal and will soon commence scheduled flights. These airlines and other charter airlines will no doubt be eager to operate direct flights to Santiago Island in the future once sufficient demand is created with the development of quality tourism accommodation.

At present, TACV (Cabo Verde Airlines) operates 4 flights per week between Sal and Lisbon as well as twice-weekly flights to Amsterdam, and weekly flights to Madrid (stopping at Tenerife), Munich, Boston, Fortaleza (Brazil), Paris and Milan (including Bergamo, Italy). TAP-Air Portugal also operates 4 flights a week between Lisbon and Sal. There are also flights between the existing small airport on Santiago and Dakar (Senegal), Banjul (The Gambia) and Bissau (Guinea-Bissau). South African Airways use Sal as a stop-over for its flights between Johannesburg/Cape Town and New-York. LAM-Mozambiquan Airlines, and Air Angola also use Sal for stop-overs on their flights to Lisbon and New York.