AFRAA: EC Air Plans European Growth

Posted 24/11/2011

Equatorial Congo Airlines, or EC Air as it has become better known, only launched operations in September this year but it is already finalising plans to treble its fleet to three aircraft and introduce its first flights outside of Africa. The carrier is based at Brazzaville in the Republic of Congo and is currently using a single Boeing 737-300 configured with 12 business class and 108 economy class seats to operate three flights per day to Point Noire.

The start-up is marketing itself as the national carrier of the Republic of Congo and has been fully backed by the Congolese Government as a vehicle for the modernisation of the aviation sector in the region. It was established with the support of Lufthansa Consulting and its flight operations are being managed by Swiss private aviation company PrivatAir.

Speaking to The HUB at this week’s African Airlines Association Annual General Assembly in Marrakech, Morocco, executives from the airline confirmed plans to expand the fleet and network across Africa and even into Europe. A second 737, possibly a Next-Generation variant will arrive within the coming two months, while a larger aircraft, likely to be a 757-200, will join in the first quarter of 2012 for links into Europe.

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PLEASE NOTE: From March 7, 2012 schedule data for all news stories has been extracted from OAG Schedules iNET; All GDS data is based on a live GDS update on the day of publication; Traffic data extracted from IATA BSP system for the year ending December 2011. All information is subject to change.

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