(Business in Cameroon) - Government-owned airline Camair-Co will resume its African routes, suspended due to financial challenges, on December 17, 2021. According to the Camair-Co, the routes will resume with two weekly flights to Libreville, Gabon (on Mondays and Fridays).
The route is resumed amid the successful negotiations for the acquisition of two Bombardier Dash 8 - Q400s for Camair-Co, which leased similar planes in 2018. Thanks to the planes that will soon be delivered, Camair-Co will resume regional flights on the eve of the AFCON 2021, an important African sports event Cameroon will host from January 9 to February 6, 2022.
The relaunch of regional flights, coupled with domestic routes (according to estimates of its management, Camair-Co only covers just about 45% of the domestic market) is part of a restructuring plan being gradually implemented by the new management team. According to Jean Christophe Ela Nguema, Camair-Co’s MD, the restructuring plan also provides for the installation of a maintenance center, a training center, a ground-handling unit, and a catering service.
Should all those projects be successfully implemented despite the airlines’ financial challenges, they will contribute to making the company attractive for a potential strategic investor. Indeed, in a correspondence sent on July 14, 2020, to the secretary-general of the Prime Minister’s office by State Minister Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh, the government of Cameroon was very explicit on the future of that airline.
“The President of the Republic instructs the Prime Minister (...) to urgently formulate (...) a plan for the restructuration recovery and development of the company [ed. note: Camair-Co] given the opening of up to 51% of its social capital to a private strategic partner in compliance with Article 5 of the decree of September 11, 2006, creating Camair-Co,” Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh wrote.
Brice R. Mbodiam