Read for you: Air Burkina soon taken over by an American group

The Prime Minister, Christophe Joseph Marie Dabiré, met on Tuesday 20 October 2020 in the evening, with a delegation of the American group African Global Development, specialized in aeronautics. According to Phil Smartt, president of this group, the exchanges with the head of government focused on the signing of an agreement to acquire the national airline Air Burkina. With this partial takeover, approximately FCFA 250 billion will be injected into the company’s capital, in order to strengthen its fleet.

According to the president of the group taking over Air Burkina, the process of taking over the company is underway. Thus, after the signing of the acquisition agreement, the legal process will begin and will last about two months. It is at the end of this stage that new aircraft will reinforce the fleet of Air Burkina, which will move from the state-owned company regime to the private company regime, from 1 January 2021.

‘From that moment on, we will be able to implement everything we have decided, everything we have put into our action plan’ said Mr. Smartt.

«We are in the process of implementing the government’s plan for the relaunch of Air Burkina», argued the Burkinabè Minister in charge of Transport, Vincent Dabilgou. For him, in the program of the President of Faso, Roch Marc Christian Kaboré, Air Burkina is perceived as a national company that represents our heritage, our flag-bearer, in the sub-region, but also in the world.

In the opinion of the minister, the objective is to work to consolidate the company’s foundations. To do this, the government has developed a two-tiered plan. The first step was to stabilize Air Burkina and ensure that its leadership was maintained in the African sub-region. ‘That’s what we did, making lising with three planes (embraers),’ explained Vincent Dabilgou.

For the second phase, it is a question, according to him, of relaunching the company, in order to go to the conquest of the world. And to achieve this goal, we had to find a partner who not only has substantial financial resources, but also technology and who knows civil aviation.

The Minister announced that with this takeover, the Air Burkina fleet will be reinforced by “Airbus” and “ATR” in particular, to allow the company to make many more flights, especially to Europe. The national airline recovery plan will provide our country with an aviation training centre that will help train young pilots and ground engineers.

“The buyers of Air Burkina have understood that the geographical position of our country is interesting for them, because it is a potential they want to develop,” said Minister Dabilgou.

DCRP/Primature