lamprey

Caught an interesting piece on the news about the ABJ airport upping security measures for a new flight connecting Abidjan and the US this year. (the video is in French) By my reckoning, the only US-West Africa flights are SAA from DKR to IAD and Delta from ACC to JFK. The newspapers here aren't naming an airline, but the word on the street here is that it's probably SAA (similar to their arrangement in DKR). Could this be a godsend for those of us who are often stuck having to fly to Paris or Brussels to get to the US?

dvs7310

Don't forget the UA flight to LOS.

I can easily see this being a US carrier more so than SA as ABJ is an oil & gas hub which are premium cabin heavy for US carriers. If that's the case you may very well see ABJ-IAH or DFW rather than the East Coast. May not be any more beneficial than flying via Brussels if that's the case. Pretty unusual for UA not to announce in advance if it's them though.

Stewie Mac

[bolding mine]. I would guess that this might be an ABJ-IAH flight operated specifically for the oilcos, something like the existing IAH-LAD flight.

Indelaware

The following flights operate:

ACC-JFK DL
CMN-JFK AT
DKR-IAD SA
DKR-JFK DL
DKR-JFK SA
LOS-ATL DL
LOS-IAH UA
LOS-JFK W3

If you are at ABJ and dislike connecting at CDG & BRU, why not try connections at CAI (MS), CMN (AT), ADD (ET), & IST (TK)? One could also do an interline connection ABJ-TUN-YUL-XXX, but that might be costly.

evanb

If SA could get traffic rights on an ABJ-IAD sector I could see them splitting their JNB-DKR-IAD flight between DKR and ABJ. Say, four days a week using DKR and three days a week using ABJ for the tech stop between IAD and JNB.

From a personal perspective, ABJ is a much nicer airport than DKR. In terms of using it as a connecting point for regional traffic I would take ABJ over DKR any day. It is also probably a lot more connected to the rest of the region. DKR can be quite isolated at times.

lamprey

This is the logic that I've heard. This story (in French) quotes the minister saying it's a ABJ-Washington flight (which must then be Dulles). The U.S. Ambassador called it a "foreign" airline, so that would rule out UA. I suppose it could be a different African-based airlines with a stopover before crossing the Atlantic. However, the decline of DKR regional connections and the rise of ABJ points to this theory about SAA shifting/splitting their JNB-IAD stopover. The added bonus to this situation is then there would also be a direct flight from ABJ to JNB (instead of the 3x a week flights with a stopover in ACC).

News accounts of the Minister state that once the TSA approves the airport's security, flights could begin immediately. Here's hoping they get on it!

Indelaware

Or BWI.

lamprey

Hmm, while BWI may be technically an international airport, I think they only currently have transatlantic flights to London and Iceland.

Indelaware

BWI is certainly an international airport. In addition to Iceland and the U.K., BWI has scheduled commercial service to the Canada, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Germany, Mexico plus scheduled public charter service to the Bahamas (as well as to the D.R. and Mexico beyond the scheduled services) not to mention quite a bit contracted international traffic for the AMC. Until its failure a few years ago, NA provided scheduled commercial passenger service to ACC & BJL. And of course there is the international cargo traffic that transits through BWI's designated foreign trade zone.

If there is to be a new ABJ-WAS, no reason to assume that it is not ABJ-BWI.

dvs7310

I certainly wouldn't anticipate a route to a secondary international gateway like BWI unless there was a significant Ivorian American population there, but at least according to Wikipedia, there isn't a very significant Ivorian American population anywhere, not large enough to justify a flight. If this rumor about Washington pans out then it also doesn't make sense for it to be an oil route, so I'd be willing to put my bets on SA to IAD.

lamprey

Well, Ethiopian and South African both already have an established presence at IAD and ABJ, and both have fleets that necessitate fuel stops en route from their hubs to the US...

Indelaware

It is a quite reasonable suggestion to think that this might be the case. My point is that it is not reasonable to assume that the route need be this; it is entirely possible that the route not be operated by either ET or SA.

The last aviation agreement I find between the United States and Ivory Coast is from 1978. (http://airlineinfo.com/treaties/ivorycoast1.pdf.) Does anyone know of a more recent agreement?

Alpha Golf

Gossip I've heard is ADJ replacing DKR on JNB-IAD.

evanb

It's not gossip. SAA have been openly shopping around for an alternative to DKR for a while. ACC has been most mentioned, but given that it already has non-stop service to the US i'm not surprised to hear ABJ now mentioned.

lamprey

The buzz around here last week is that the SAA JNB-DKR-USA routes might not be long for this world. They're considering moving both the JFK and IAD routes and splitting them between ABJ and another airport (which could be the ACC mention). I guess we'll see in the coming weeks.