Africa World Airlines (AW, Accra) is looking to upgauge from its E145 fleet to gain longer range, but no decision has yet been made, according to the privately owned Ghanian airline's new chief operating officer, Sohail Mahmood.

"We recognise, as an airline, that our time has come for something bigger, and so we are actively sort of looking and assessing what would be the next step, what would be the best aircraft that would fit our next sort of ventures. So there is something in mind. There's something that we are for sure looking at. It's not something I can tell you now," he disclosed on the AviaDev Africa podcast.

The fact that AWA is looking to upgauge was already disclosed to ch-aviation in June 2025 by vice president Andy Zhang. The company has two plans for expansion, he said. Plan A is to lease two more E145s, but sourcing aircraft under 20 years old has been challenging. Plan B is to introduce E190s to the fleet.

ch-aviation-aviation fleets data shows that AWA operates a fleet of seven E145s, of which two are currently inactive, according to ADS-B data.

Mahmood emphasised that the E145 had been the backbone fleet and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future. He described the Embraer variant as "probably the single most ideal aircraft on this continent" to connect cities that are within an hour of each other, and to establish new routes. "It's an extremely reliable aircraft that is easy to maintain. It's robust, it's rugged, it'll do the terrain. It's not hampered by weather."

However, he pointed out the type's limitations for altitude and range. "If we want to do Accra-Dakar Blaise Diagne International, we're limited. We simply cannot get there with the E145. The seating capacity is limited, the fuel range is limited, the cargo is limited. So then we have to start looking at something else."

Route plans

Operating on a hub-and-spoke business model from Accra, Africa World Airlines currently operates daily on domestic routes to Takoradi, Kumasi, and Tamale. Regionally, it operates daily to Abidjan and Lagos in Nigeria. Particularly successful has been a 4x weekly connection since July 2025 between Accra and Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso, said Mahmood.

He said the airline is eyeing two additional destinations, but any decision would be based on proper research and data-driven, a cautious and analytical business approach that forms the airline's business hallmark.

AWA is backed by a mix of Ghanaian and Chinese investors. The Ghanaian stakeholders include SAS Finance Group, led by the airline’s founder and Asogli Traditional Area leader Togbe Afede XIV, and the Social Security and National Insurance Trust. The Chinese partners are Hainan Airlines Holding (owned by Liaoning Fangda Group Industrial) and the China-Africa Development Fund (CADFund), which together hold minority stakes.

The road ahead

Mahmood said his goal over the next two to three years at AWA is to transform the airline into a "benchmark carrier" for West Africa, operating at standards comparable to leading airlines in Europe, the US, the Middle East, and Asia.

He noted that detailed plans are already in place, such as organisational improvements and regulatory, safety, and economic upgrades aimed at creating a tightly run operation. Much of the groundwork has been laid, he added, with the focus now on fine-tuning and implementing the remaining measures, alongside pursuing a network expansion with several new routes under consideration.