On 1 July 2019, the airport was renamed Melchior Ndadaye International Airport after the first democratically elected president of Burundi who was murdered in a coup d'état in October 1993, three months after being elected.
On 1 July 2019, the airport was renamed Melchior Ndadaye International Airport to commemorate the first democratically elected president of Burundi, who was assassinated by a coup d'état in October 1993, just three months after his election.