West African regional airlines - looking for options for intra-region travel
 

Have some work coming up in 2017 in West Africa, and looking at options for air travel within the region (Accra, Freetown, Monrovia, Conakry, Dakar, Nouakchott, Bamako). I know that ET/KQ/TK have some random fifth freedom flights in the region, and Air Cote d'Ivoire covers them, but with connections through ABJ - am I missing any regional carriers? Overland options might be fun (I've read ironmanjt's trip reports :)) but this would be for work and don't really want to spend days travelling.

[ITA and the like don't tend to be very good at picking up local African airlines...]

ASKY is the best and most reliable of the bunch by far. Effectively a subsidiary of Ethiopian.

There are some other regional carriers that come up on Skyscanner -- that sometimes don't pull up on Kayak or ITA Matrix.

Thanks for the heads-up on ASky... still means routing via Lome, but at least they should be more or less reliable.

And I do use Skyscanner, but I was hoping that there are more options than it offers - I've plugged in one possible routing for Jan, ACC-NKC, and the cheapest offer is $1600 via Dubai and Algiers, taking 27 hours... :(

[Admittedly that is a particularly bad 'best' option, on one particular day, but indicative of the difficulty!]

Does anyone know of any authoritative source for all airlines flying scheduled services into/out of an airport? Or is wikipedia my best bet?

West African air connections tend to be linguistically grouped. Accra will get you excellent connections to anglophone countries like Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Liberia, etc.. For the Francophone countries, the connectivity is better from Abidjan, Dakar, etc.. The main hubs are decently connected, so if you can plan your trips keeping that in mind you will find flight options more friendly than 27 hour connections!

I was in your boat and couldn't find an 'authoritative source.' I used a combination of Wikipedia (look up the airports and check the cities / airlines one-by-one) and Skyscanner. I suppose you could also look up the airports on FlightStats.com and check an entire week's worth of arrivals and departures to see who is going in and out. I'm not an expert but I think I'd like to think I'd have have found a better method if there were one. So, I think you're doing all you can.

I know that many things in Africa run along linguistic lines (availability of wine being one!) but I disagree here. Accra has more flights to Abidjan than to Freetown or Monrovia, for instance. I do accept that the hubs have decent (relative) connectivity, but really the only hubs in the region are Abidjan for Air Cote d'Ivoire or Lome for ASKY.... I was hoping that there were more than that, given that I don't need to be in either CdI or Togo :(

Thanks for the confirmation of my fears.

Avoid Arik
 

I'm in the same boat and find crossing from Eng to French speaking countries can result in puddle-jumping routes. Asky seems to be fairly reliable, but back-to-school/post holiday travel is a nightmare with overbookings, so avoid these times of year if you can. Arik has a well-deserved terrible reputation for unexplained cancellations with no warning or explanation and no notification of delays. Whatever you choose, make sure you get visas for all countries you'll pass through, even if only for a connection, because transit visas that allow you out of the airport are not always available even when you have an ongoing flight.

As bad as Arik is they do not mess with intra Africa connection.. Try them.

Where is the best place to book Air Cote d'Ivoire. Skyscanner lists a few OTA but I prefer to book directly with the airline. The Air Cote d'Ivoire website doesn't offer the capability to book online so which of the OTA's do you suggest? eDreams, Travel2Be, airtickets, Vayama? ASky doesn't fly DKR-ROB. Thanks!