Air Afrique: A name still remembered by many Africans on the continent and in the diaspora. Once a literal beacon of hope, this ‘lost’ Pan-African airline was, for a while, a success story that served as a testament of Africa’s promise.
Founded in 1961, Air Afrique was the product of a treaty signed by a consortium of eleven francophone West and Central African countries, including Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon, Mauritania, Niger, the Republic of the Congo, and Senegal, who all wanted to create a united airline that could carry Africans across Africa and beyond. An airline for Africa, by Africans.
Writer Jeff Megayo relays a sentiment that likely lead to the formation of Air Afrique, and that encapsulates how many Africans saw Air Afrique: “The name [Air Afrique] reassured me that it was truly African. I was captivated because whenever I watched [Air Afrique’s] commercials on T.V., I saw pilots and crew members who looked like me.”
In a blog dedicated to the now-defunct Air Afrique, which declared bankruptcy and ceased all operations in early 2002, a commenter reminiscences about the heyday of the airline and the ‘dream’ that Air Afrique was for young Africans. Having lived near the airstrip of the Maya-Maya International Airport in Brazzaville, the capital of the DRC, from 1980 to 1995, the commenter recalls frequently seeing airplanes flying overhead and being particularly buoyed whenever she spotted an Air Afrique plane. She also fondly remembers her first flight to Paris in 1985, with Air Afrique at that time connecting many hubs and smaller airports in Africa to Europe and to the United States.
Sadly, what the young traveller did not know then, what many Africans for whom the airline remained an ideal did not know, is that, by the 1980s, Air Afrique was struggling. Modern-day commentators ascribe Air Afrique’s downfall mainly to mismanagement, with political in-fighting between certain member countries and between politicians in some of the member countries themselves having a severely negative impact on the airline’s operability and viability.
However, one cannot ignore the dire economic difficulties the airline was always going to face, including the declining economies of its member countries (some of whom dutifully kept plunging funds into Air Afrique despite their country’s financial circumstances) in the latter half of the twentieth century and the generally high cost of running an airline post-1980, with even developed countries struggling to keep their national carriers operational.
From a flourishing airline with ever-expanding routes, a flag of African pride in the sky in the 1960s and 1970s, to severely indebted with a continually diminishing fleet size in the 1990s, Air Afrique made it to the turn of the millennium with plans from the World Bank and Air Afrique’s long-time minority shareholder, Air France, to revive the airline and restore it to its former glory. However, 9/11 hit the aviation industry hard and that crisis was, unfortunately, the death knell for Air Afrique. When Air Afrique declared bankruptcy in February 2002, its almost 5000 employees and agents lost their livelihoods, and for many Africans the world over, it was the end of an era.
Still, the early success of Air Afrique, the sentiments that it inspired, and the modern-day success of an African airline such as Ethiopian Airlines, attests that the ideal of a Pan-African airline should not be forgotten and that a united African fleet may, some day soon, hopefully be seen flying over the horizon once more.
by Illona Meyer
Africa Global News Publication
