ASKY Airlines (KP, Lomé) has confirmed it will make its Southern African debut early during the next quarter. In a statement issued via social media, the Togolese carrier said a 4x weekly Lomé-Johannesburg O.R. Tambo, South Africa, service would commence from April 8 onwards using B737-800 equipment.

Earlier this year, ASKY Chief Executive Officer Henok Teferra told Bloomberg that aside from Johannesburg, the carrier was eager to set in motion long-held plans to start intercontinental flights to Beirut, Lebanon, as well as Paris, France.

“Paris is among our priority destinations,” he said. “There is significant traffic between France and francophone countries in west and central Africa.”

ASKY currently operates three B737-700s, one B737-800 (with one more due), and four Dash 8-400s on scheduled passenger flights throughout West and Central Africa. The aircraft are all retained on the Ethiopian registry given Ethiopian Airlines (ET, Addis Ababa International) is ASKY's technical partner.

West Africa is the last of Ethiopian's three African hubs (the others being Addis Ababa International and Lilongwe, Malawi through its Malawi Airlines unit) to connect to Johannesburg, the continent's busiest airfield in terms of annual passenger throughput.