The Kel Aïr are the Tuareg confederation of the Aïr massif in northern Niger, the southernmost of the major Tuareg confederations and the demographic heart of the Saharan-Sahelian Tuareg sphere. They take their name from the Aïr — Ayr in Tamasheq — the granite and basalt highland that rises from the surrounding desert to peaks above 1,800 metres.
The confederation is conventionally divided into a number of constituent tribes — Kel Ferwan, Kel Owey, Kel Tedele, Itesen — under the political authority of the Sultan of Aïr, whose seat at Agadez was established in the mid-fifteenth century. The sultanate became the principal Tuareg political institution south of the Sahara and the focal point of trans-Saharan trade between the Sahel and the Maghreb.
Historic Aïr economy combined caravan trade, oasis agriculture in the wadis, and pastoralism on the surrounding plains. The seasonal Azalaï salt caravan from Bilma to Agadez, undertaken each autumn by Kel Aïr lineages, is among the longest continuously practised commercial movements in Africa.
The Kel Aïr were the demographic core of the Tuareg rebellions in Niger in 1990–1995 and again from 2007. The contemporary population is divided between the historic pastoral economy, uranium-related employment around Arlit, and seasonal labour migration; many households are partially settled around Agadez, Iferouane, and Tabelot.