Air Afrique
| Air Afrique | |
|---|---|
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| IATA code : | RK |
| ICAO code : | RKA |
| Call sign : | AIRAFRIC |
| Founding: | 1961 |
| Operation stopped: | 2001 |
| Seat: | Abidjan |
| Home airport : | Abidjan Airport |
| Fleet size: | 10 |
| Aims: | Africa, Europe, Middle East, North America |
| Air Afrique ceased operations in 2001. The information in italics refer to the last status before the end of operation. | |
Air Afrique (full company name Société Aérienne Africaine Multinationale ) was a multinational airline of several African countries and France .
Member states and shareholders
It was founded when the Yaoundé ( Cameroon ) treaty was signed on March 28, 1961. The "fathers" of the company were:
- Air France
- the French airline Union Aéromaritime de Transport (UAT)
and the African states belonging to the Afro-Madagascar Union :
- Dahomey (today Benin )
- Ivory Coast
- Gabon
- Cameroon
- Congo - Brazzaville
- Mauritania
- Niger
- Upper Volta (today Burkina Faso )
- Senegal
- Chad
- Central African Republic
Togo joined the joint venture in 1965 and Mali a few years later , while Cameroon left in September 1971 and Gabon 1977 to form their own national airlines. Each member state took on a share of six percent of the start-up capital and the obligation to participate in losses or investments in this amount. The remaining capital share was carried by the Société pour le Développement du Transport Aérien en Afrique (SODETRAF), a company of the French airline Union de Transports Aériens (UTA). After some changes in the capital structure, the 11 member states each held 6.4 percent of the company in the early 1990s, the remaining 29.6 percent were made up of a consortium consisting of UTA, DHL , the French Development Bank ( French: Caisse Française de Développement CFD) and the West African Development Bank ( French Banque Ouest Africaine de Développement BOAD) held. After Cameroon left, the headquarters of the regional branch for Equatorial Africa was relocated from Douala to Libreville in 1971 .
development
Flight operations began on August 19, 1961. It flew the original route network of Air France and UTA in French Africa and operated with aircraft types such as Boeing 707 and DC-8 , (since 1965) also with the Caravelle and since 1975 with the DC-10 , which were leased from these companies.
As the largest airline in sub-Saharan Africa , Air Afrique employed around 5,600 people at the time, operated an extensive African route network and operated services to Paris and other major European cities as well as to New York and Jeddah .
Since the 1980s, the types A300 , A310 and Boeing 737 , 747 and 767 have also been used.
Decline
From 1993 the airline was highly unprofitable, and by 2002 liabilities of $ 450 million accumulated, mainly to leasing companies and fuel suppliers. In 1994 financial problems arose due to the devaluation of the CFA franc , which drove up fuel prices and interest payments. Under the crisis manager Rolland Billecart, who came from France, further losses of 14 billion CFA francs were accumulated between 1994 and 1997. In 1997, due to the civil war that raged there, the company lost an important hub with the Maya-Maya Airport in Brazzaville . In 1998 there were again major financial problems due to currency fluctuations. Operations ceased in October 2001. Since the remainder of the company could not find any buyers, it was liquidated in 2002. In addition to the high costs, the airline's insolvency is also attributed to the operation of the eleven participating countries and the resulting inflated structures; Another reason is the high level of often unpaid use by national governments and their families.
Incidents
From 1963 to the cessation of operations in 2001, Air Afrique suffered 7 total aircraft losses. One of them killed 55 people. Abstract:
- On May 3, 1963, a Douglas DC-6B of Air Afrique ( aircraft registration F-BIAO ) was flown on the way from Douala Airport ( Cameroon ) to Lagos ( Nigeria ) 60 kilometers north-northwest of Douala in the Cameroon Mountain. The machine was still climbing when it collided with the volcano at a height of almost 2000 meters. All 55 occupants were killed in this CFIT, controlled flight into terrain .
Special
On 6 May 1985, the operator took over the Zurich airport , the former Zurich Airport Authority, a DC-8 of Air Afrique. Until the summer of 2014 it served as a training object for Protection and Rescue Zurich . Previously, this machine was parked for around a year and was no longer released due to outstanding payments for kerosene and airport charges. The machine in question with the aircraft registration TU-TCP was completely dismantled and scrapped in the course of 2014.
See also
Web links
- Air Afrique - Details and Fleet History ( Memento of October 11, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
Individual evidence
- ↑ Accident statistics Air Afrique , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on 19 September 2019.
- ^ Accident report DC-6B F-BIAO , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on September 19, 2019.
- ↑ Retired Air Afrique DC 8 at Zurich Airport ( Memento from September 16, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
