French flag carrier, Air France, is scheduled to start commercial flights into Accra from February next year, sources close to the airline have said.
Air France, headquartered in Tremblay-en-France, is a subsidiary of the Air France–KLM Group and a founding member of the SkyTeam global airline alliance. The imminent entry of Air France into Ghana’s aviation space is expected to deepen competition and diversity in one of the fast growing economic sectors in the country.
“Air France will start operations on February 27, 2017. Air France will be coming into Ghana three times a week. Its sister company KLM will still operate flights seven days a week,” a close source said.
Air France has a strong presence in Francophone West Africa and Central African countries such as Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cote D’Ivoire, Senegal and Democratic Republic of Congo.
The entry of Air France is thus seen as a response to the demands of the French community in Ghana as the country is currently home to a large French-speaking nationals most of whom are business professionals and students from other French-speaking African countries.
Given the close economic and social links between Francophone countries in the sub-region and France, a lot of French-speaking people resident in Ghana travel to the Europe for education, business and leisure.
Air France is also expected to benefit from the increased in transit passenger numbers.
The ease of travel through the Kotoka International Airport is drawing more people from the sub-region to connect flights from Accra to major European cities including Paris.
Transit passenger volumes increased from 14,000 in July 2015 to over 22, 000 in July this year.
General international passenger departures also increased by about 6 percent; from about 72,000 in July 2015 to about 76,000 in July 2016.
Currently, Africa remains the continent with the largest number of French speakers.
The International Organisation of La Francophonie (OIF) estimate that there are 96.2 million French-speakers in Africa.
About 13 countries in Africa have French as the language of instruction at the pre-tertiary level while other countries have French or bilingual studies at the tertiary level of Education.
Source: B&FT Online