By Chris Muhizi for MCN Saturday July 1st/2023.
The state-owned flag airline for the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Congo Airways, is a relatively young entity that connects several local locations. It was founded in 2014. There are six active scheduled carriers, including the airline based in Kinshasa, according to ch-aviation. Many other airlines are registered as passenger charters or start-ups rather than active scheduled airlines.
The local government sought to launch a new national airline a year after Lignes Aériennes Congolaises (Congolese Airlines – 4V) went out of business in 2013. On October 20, 2015, Congo Airways made its air debut after purchasing two Airbus A320ceo from Alitalia. The new airline first provided regional services from Kinshasa, the country’s capital, to a number of local destinations as well as Johannesburg, South Africa, and Douala, Cameroon.
According to a post on ch-aviation, long-term expansion plans in the late 2010s envisioned a more extensive African route network to locations like Pointe-Noire, Luanda, Addis Abeba, Nairobi, Lagos, and Abidjan. Congo Airways’ Director of Sales and Marketing Norbert Sengamali also discussed travel intentions to Guangzhou and Dubai.
African carriers were not exempt from the unfortunate global airline operations suspension that occurred in March 2020. Toward the end of 2020, Congo Airways reopened their service to Johannesburg; however, it has since been shut down once more. You can still try to book a flight from Kinshasa to South Africa on their website, but it will give no results.
These two A320-200s, 19S-AKD and 9S-ALU, are still in service with the airline today. Early in 2008, when they had finished manufacture, they were transferred to Air One, a company that amalgamated with Alitalia in 2009. In order to better serve its ten destinations, Congo Airways purchased two DHC-8-Q400 aircraft in April 2016: 9S-AAN and 9S-AKV. These aircraft were originally supplied to Air Niugini in 2010.
The airline had planned to replace its Dash 8 aircraft with two Embraer E175 aircraft in 2019, however they then switched these orders for two brand-new E190-E2 aircraft. They did, however, increase their Embraer order to include two ERJ 190-300s and two ERJ 190-400s.
This has been the situation for a while, as Simple Flying revealed more than a year ago that Congo Airways may have been considering abandoning the purchase entirely in favor of the Airbus A220. Even though the Embraer aircraft have been on the market for half a year past the scheduled delivery date, their listing on ch-aviation is still active. Which jets from which manufacturer the Congolese carrier will receive delivery is a matter of time.
The website of Congo Airways currently only lists flights within the Democratic Republic of the Congo, despite the fact that its prior network included numerous international African locations. They have bases at Kinshasa, Lubumbashi, Goma, Mbujimayi, Kisangani, Kananga, Mbandaka, Gemena, Kindu, Bunia, and Isiro among these cities spread throughout the nation. The introduction of their old international routes and new locations might be made easier by the addition of new planes.
Source: Ch- aviation/ Congo Airways.
