Senegal Airlines (Dakar Yoff-Léopold Sédar Senghor International) will not file for bankruptcy despite its precarious financial state the airline's CEO, Racine Mayoro, has said. In an interview with JeuneAfrique magazine, Mayoro said the carrier's high debt ratio had forced it to depend on the Senegalese government for funding.

"It's not possible. Our debt is nothing compared to that of other companies. It would only take one creditor to resolve this issue," the CEO responded when questioned about a possible bankruptcy filing.

Mayoro said that among the factors that have exacerbated the airline's woes are chronic under-capitalization (XOF16.5billion (USD34.8million)), which is insufficient considering its mandate, and an increasingly competitive West African regional market.

A recent government bid to offload a majority stake in the airline to a consortium of local Senegalese banks failed when the latter baulked at the airline's operating costs.

Concerning previous reports about a possible strategic partner, Mayoro said that talks with an undisclosed number of interested parties were still ongoing but that Royal Air Maroc (AT, Casablanca Mohamed V) and South African Airways (SA, Johannesburg O.R. Tambo) had since withdrawn. Afriqiyah Airways (8U, Tripoli Mitiga), Ethiopian Airlines (ET, Addis Ababa International) and Air France (AF, Paris CDG) were also mentioned as possible contenders earlier this year. Dakar believes the carrier's access to lucrative, yet underexploited, traffic rights would be attractive to any foreign airlines looking to expand from their own mature, saturated markets.

Bogged down with over XAF8.3billion (USD17.5million) in debts, the Senegalese national carrier has been forced to undertake a dramatic downsizing of both its fleet and network coverage. Using an entirely-leased fleet of one A320-200 and one Dash 8-400, the airline offers scheduled flights to Ziguinchor domestically as well as to Bissau, Conakry, Nouakchott, and Praia regionally. Until recently, Senegal Airlines had also wet-leased an CRJ100 from South Africa's CemAir (5Z, Johannesburg O.R. Tambo) only to abruptly end the agreement last week.