Air Afrique
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Air Afrique was based in Abidjan, Ivory Coast and was established as a transnational African airline
[edit] History
On March 28, 1961, co-founded by Air France and the following 11 Western African countries:
- Benin
- Burkina Faso
- Central African Republic
- Chad
- Republic of the Congo
- Côte d'Ivoire
- Mali
- Mauritania
- Niger
- Senegal
- Togo
Cameroon and Gabon were part of the original group of nations which founded Air Afrique but the withdrew from the consortium in the early 1970s, while Togo joined in January 1968.
The objective was the creation of comprehensive internal services within these countries as well as international connections, in the absence of which each of these relatively poor countries would have to establish its own airline.
The first service of this multi-national airline took place in August 1961 with Douglas DC-4s and Douglas DC-6s. In the year the airline was established, a route was set up to Paris using Lockheed Constellation. A leased Douglas DC-8 was the first jet aircraft in the fleet and it came in 1962. In 1973 the airline's first widebody, a DC-10 was acquired. The first [[Boding 747[[ was used from October 1980 to March 1984. Later on in the 1980s, the Airbus A310 was used, followed by the Airbus A300-600.
The airline also used the Airbus A300B4, the Antonov An-12, the Boeing 707-300F, and the Boeing 737-200.
On July 24, 1987, Hussein Mohammed Hariri, a man claiming to be a member of Hezbollah, hijacked an Air Afrique DC-10 en route from Rome to Paris. He demanded to be flown to Beirut and, as a sign of his determination, murdered a French passenger, one of 148 passengers on board the flight. He also seriously wounded a stewardess who attempted to overpower him.
In 2001, the 11 African co-founders, which originally owned 68% of the company, sold almost two thirds of their stake in the company to Air France and other private investors in exchange for a $69 million bailout.
[edit] External links
- Google Groups - History of Air Afrique
- Terrorism Knowledge Database - Hezbollah attacked Airports & Airlines target (July 24, 1987, Congo (Brazzaville))
- Air France
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