Air Afrique loses half its fleet

The African airline is set to lose half its fleet

Pan-African airline, Air Afrique, is being forced to hand back four leased planes, half its fleet, as it cannot pay its debts.

Bailiffs grounded two of the planes in Ivory Coast, one in Senegal and one in the French city of Bordeaux.

Air Afrique, which leases eight planes in total from the International Lease Finance Corporation, expects that the return of the four aircraft will affect its inter-state and New York services.

The airline, which was set up in 1961 by former French colonies as a symbol of unity and independence, is currently struggling with debts of $464m (510m euro)

It narrowly avoided bankruptcy in August, but was saved when Air France agreed to take a controlling stake of 35%.

Member states

Benin

Burkina Faso

Central African Republic

Republic of Congo

Ivory Coast

Mali

Chad

Mauritania

Niger

Senegal

Togo

The company's 11 member states now own 20% of the company.

"I suspect that as we are moving into a climate where governments will be helping airlines in the United States and in Europe, it's unlikely that we will just see them walk away from Air Afrique," Geoffrey Lipman at tourism organisation Green Globe said.

In light of the financial limitations faced by African governments, Mr Lipman believes that European governments may also be keen to help the airline.

"In the medium term there has to be a different way to provide air services to African nations but what you can't allow is those countries not to get air services," he said.