Air Congo set for December launch

Mesfin Tasew, Group CEO of Ethiopian told African Aerospace in an interview during the carrier’s delivery ceremony for its first Airbus A350-1000 on 4 November.

Air Congo is the latest African carrier backed by Ethiopian Airlines following in the footsteps of Togo’s ASKY, Zambia Airways and Malawi Airlines. Earlier this year, Ethiopian was close to finalising a deal to launch a joint venture airline in Nigeria, but this plan stalled.

Ethiopian will take a 49% stake in Kinshasa-based Air Congo with the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo holding the majority stake. “It is agreed and signed, and we have deployed the resources and the people,” said Tasew.

“Since it is a startup, it is difficult to get aircraft so we took out two airplanes from our operation and the first one will go for painting with the airline’s new logo this week,” he said.

“For the first six months, it will be domestic,” said Tasew, speaking about route plans. “They have a very big domestic network, and after six months, we will add two more airplanes. When we reach four, it will start flying to a few neighbouring countries.”

After a year in operation the aim is for Air Congo to reach a fleet size of six 737-800s.

Air Congo is the latest airline venture in the country where carriers have struggled to sustain operations. Congo Airways, another state-backed carrier, took to the air in late 2023 after being grounded with a 737-800 wet-leased for several months from Lithuanian ACMI operator KlasJet.

Ethiopian’s experience with joint venture airlines as it seeks to extend its reach across Africa has broadly been successful with the carrier conducting a careful assessment of partners and the business plan before going ahead, explained Tasew.

“We talk to either governments or partners in selected countries to set up their own national carriers. We do our due diligence and if the result of the assessment shows it is good to invest in that airline, we go ahead.”