Ghana looking to revive collapsed national airline by October

Since the collapse of Ghana’s national airline, Ghana International Airlines, in 2010, the government is looking forward to reviving the sector with a new airline by October.

The country’s Ministry of Transport announced in the past its interest in partnerships to start a new national airline, and one of the airlines in talks with the government is South Africa Airways.

“Pushing towards that calendar, we have had a number of offers already. We have a lot of technical expertise on-going with South Africa Airways. We are not looking at being a majority shareholder but have significant minority,” Ghana’s transport minister Fiifi Kwetey told local media Business and Financial Times.

He envisaged the first flight to take off in October with concentration in the west coast of Africa before expanding to other regions.

The defunct Ghana International Airlines (GIA) took over from Ghana Airways as a national airline in 2004 as a partnership between the government of Ghana and a group of private international investors.

The government owned 70% of shares while the international consortium owned 30% in the GIA which had one plane and partnered with a number of international airlines to boost its operations.

The earlier airline, Ghana Airways, had cooperation agreement with South African Airways in 1999 but was run down by debts and legal disputes since its founding in 1958.