Gabonese gov't pushes ahead with new national carrier plans ch-aviation PRO exclusive

Ethiopian Airlines (ET, Addis Ababa) will resume 5th Freedom international flights out of Asmara, Eritrea in December following a 20-year-long hiatus.

According to RoutesOnline, the Ethiopian national carrier will start 3x weekly flights from the Eritrean capital to London Heathrow, United Kingdom from December 1 (operated onboard A350-900 equipment) while a 3x weekly service to Milan Malpensa via Rome Fiumicino, Italy will start on December 11 (operated onboard B777-200(LR)/B787-8 equipment).

Both routes will originate in Addis Ababa on the outbound sector and terminate there on the inbound. Ethiopian last operated international flights out of Asmara in 1998 just prior to the outbreak of the Eritrean–Ethiopian War in May of that year.

For its part, Eritrean Airlines (B8, Asmara) has attempted, unsuccessfully, to use wet-leased aircraft to serve Italy in the past most recently between November 2017 and April 2018. Over that period, it used a B737-300 wet-leased from YanAir (YE, Kiev Igor Sikorsky) to run a 2x weekly Asmara-Milan Malpensa via...

Gabon Airlines (GY, Libreville) is officially in liquidation after a Libreville court issued a directive to dispose of the defunct carrier's assets, the Gabonese Review has reported. As the official successor to Air Gabon (GN, Libreville) and its still-borne Royal Air Maroc-aligned successor, Air Gabon International (Libreville), Gabon Airlines was founded in 2007 by private investors, banks and insurers with its CEO Christian Bongo Ondimba, a son of former Gabonese strongman Omar Bongo. Initial operations between Libreville and Paris CDG took place on 11 April 2007 using a B767-200(ER) and an A340-300, CS-TQM (c/n 117) on lease from Hi Fly (5K, Lisbon). However, difficulties were soon encountered with the airline posting significant losses over the following four years. Flights ceased in 2011 while in 2012, the carrier lost its Air Operators Certificate. Among the assets that have since been disposed of include the 767-200(ER), TR-LHP (msn 21877), which had been grounded in Addis Ababa since 2007 over an unpaid debt to Ethiopian Airlines (ET,...