Construction of a replacement airport, Blaise Diagne International, 45 km inland from Léopold Sédar Senghor, began in 2007. Saudi Binladin Group constructed the new airport, named after the first black African elected to France's parliament in 1914, Blaise Diagne. It was initially expected to take 30 months to build and is designed for an initial capacity of 3 million passengers a year – almost double the 1.7 million annual traffic handled by the existing airport. Blaise Diagne was delayed several times and finally opened on December 7, 2017. As of March 2020 Senghor Airport serves only charter flights and scheduled cargo services, but not regular passenger flights.