Esmjb

Google flights tells me that if you want to go to Ghana or Senegal or wherever in that area from Rio you have to go to Europe then drop down for total travel time of ~20hrs. Are there any special flights that operate only certain times of the year from Natal/Salvador/Recife that would cut that travel time in half?

RafKa

There hasn't been a direct flight from GIG (or anywhere else in Brazil) to Western Africa since Varig stopped flying to Lagos in 1994 (and Abidjan in 1991).

A few years back you would have had connecting flights from Northeastern Brazil through Cape Verde on TACV but they went bankrupt in 2018. TAAG used to fly GIG-LDA a couple times a week, but now only go to GRU. I wouldn't attempt connecting through LDA as their website is comically bad and can't handle anything resembling connections.

The fact is that TAP has cornered the market so well, with efficient connections and competitive pricing that I would gladly use them for these country pairs despite the longer travel time (longer than a hypothetical non-existing direct flight, that is).

Flyloha

The only direct to/from Western Africa is a random flight from GRU-LAD on Gol.

Esmjb

Thanks, I guess that’s the winner if nothing else pops up. As an aside, I assume that is an oil related flight. I’ve definitely met Brazilians who lived in Angola bc their parents were in the oil biz.

malagajohn

I think the flight to Luando is a GOL codeshare - the flight is operated by TAAG , the Angolan airline

cargueiro

Is just a scheduled flight. There are a lot of moambeiras on the flight (Angolan women who buy clothes etc to sell in Luanda's markets as Brazilian fashion is big in Angola). There are also a lot of construction workers. Odebrecht was the largest construction company in Angola until its bankruptcy. Odebrecht used to charter flights with TAAG and became a bit of a conglomerate and was probably the largest company in Angola for a while. Several other large Brazilian construction companies are highly active including MRV which seems to build condos and Andrade Guttierez which seems to do road building. Brazilians are quite active in all areas of Angola's economy as, like the Portuguese, they have an advantage as lusophones.

The Angolan oil industry remains dominated by the US and a few European companies with Chevron, BP, Total, ENI, Equinor, Schlumberger, Weatherford, Bechtel, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, Halliburton, TechnipFMC, Oceaneering etc all highly active. One doesn't see Brazilian companies like Petrobras, Repsol or Enauta in Angola.

Brazil is also popular among wealthy Angolans for holidays, kid's education and medical tourism.

With TAAG you can connect on to countries in west/central Africa including Nigeria, Ghana, Cape Verde, Sao Tome and Principe, DRC, Congo, and possibly Guinea-Bissau.