Watch out for Cape Verde Runway Closures

Two issues in Cape Verde

There are ongoing runway closures at the two main airports, GVAC/Sal and GNVP/Praia, that pilots and operators would only know about if they checked the AIP.
There are Notams published for these airports which do not show up in the FAA Notam search. Again, you would likely only know about them if you checked the Notams tab on the AIP website.

What are the closures?

Basically the runways at both airports are closed weekday mornings, at GNVP/Praia until 30 Nov 2024, and at GVAC/Sal potentially until Aug 2025. The closure times are slightly different each day.

If you have a Jepp subscription, you might have seem them pop up in the NavData Change Notices, but if not, the only place you’ll find them is in the AIP SUPs.

Where is Cape Verde?

Here:

GVAC/Sal and GVNP/Praia are the two Cape Verde airports most popular for use as mid-Atlantic enroute alternates. GVSV/Sao Pedro and GVBA/Boa Vista are the other international airports. But GVAC/Sal is the one you’d most likely be considering for an enroute alternate, or maybe even a fuel stop, as this is the airport best set up to handle bizav and airline flights – they have a 9843ft runway, are open H24, and have an FBO run by Safeport (other ground handlers are also available: Aviation Services Cabo Verde, Cabo Verde Express, and CV Handling).

Why are we not seeing these closures on the Notams?

It’s because these are long-term runway closures. They are no longer publishing them by Notam because they exceed the 3-month time limit allowed by ICAO for publication, as per their Notam Improvement Campaign. So once the closures go on for longer than 3 months, they no longer get published as Notams but as AIP SUPs instead.

Whilst that’s great, in theory, for de-cluttering the Notam system of old Notams, it does leave pilots and operators having to scratch around to find the information. And in this case, we don’t even have a Notam warning us to check the AIP SUPs as the place to find it.

Worse than that, we don’t seem to be getting any Notams at all out of Cape Verde! They publish them on their own website, but for some reason none of them seem to show up on the FAA Notam search – the one that most of us use to check Notams.

Bottom line

For any ops involving GVAC or GVNP, watch out for morning weekday runway closures for the next little while, and know that you’ll likely be missing a bunch of Notams – make sure you check the Cape Verde official page for updates on both!

Watch out for Cape Verde Runway Closures