Kamuzu International Airport — Lumbadzi, Malawi

Malawi's principal international airport carries the name of Hastings Kamuzu Banda, the country's first president, who led Malawi to independence from Britain in 1964 and subsequently governed for three decades under an authoritarian one-party system. LLW sits in Lumbadzi, a stretch of countryside north of Lilongwe, the capital, a location chosen when Banda relocated Malawi's seat of government there from the commercial city of Blantyre. The airport handles a modest volume of regional and international traffic, connecting Lilongwe to destinations in southern and eastern Africa along with longer routes to Europe and the Middle East via connecting hubs. Malawi's economy, still heavily reliant on agriculture, particularly tobacco and tea exports, shapes much of the cargo traffic moving through the airport. Lilongwe itself, a comparatively young planned capital, contrasts with Blantyre's older colonial-era architecture, and LLW remains the country's main link to international air travel.