Safe Airlines in Africa?

Has been discussed before. Used by all airlines at some point or another. Its actually made for the aerospace industry and not out of the local B&Q… Does not reflect in any way on the safety of the airline unless it actually was bought at B&Q….

Mmmm, when I remember the state of the interior of that 727, I would be happy if it was B&Q tape – it was the quantity of the stuff on the wings! Eeek!

There was one airline which will remain nameless, but their head of state used to have priority over the one 747 the airline owned. A group of my fellow workers worked out from the time table, the thing was never on the ground for more than 12hrs, and never seemed to have any time for major maintenance…. Probably a figment of our imagination, but when you see what some of the more shabby African airlines do, then it wouldn’t surprise me!

Regards,
WL747

Seeing silver duct-tape on the wings of a national carrier’s aircraft is hardly awe inspiring!

Has been discussed before. Used by all airlines at some point or another. Its actually made for the aerospace industry and not out of the local B&Q… Does not reflect in any way on the safety of the airline unless it actually was bought at B&Q….

If it aint American, European or South African, forget it!

Having been forced by my work to take various African Airlines on the West Coast, I’ve had a few white knuckle rides – Seeing silver duct-tape on the wings of a national carrier’s aircraft is hardly awe inspiring!

For a laugh, for Air Gabon, if you spell it backwards, it says No Bag! Pretty much my experience. If travelling to Africa, anything of any worth should be carried cabin baggage….

Ive heard good things about Hewie Bora, with there 727s and There tristar.

From what I can tell, it is some of the mid-African (sub-Saharan) carriers that can be a bit questionable, but by no means all of them are such – i.e the likes of Ethiopian, Kenya Airways etc from mid-Africa are well respected carriers. Carriers from South Africa and from the northern countries in Africa are fine.

All of the major South African airlines are fine – South African, South African Express, South African Air Link, Comair (operating both as kulula.com and as a British Airways franchise), Mango (SAA low-cost carrier), One Time Aero, even Nationwide! Many of these carriers operate networks radiating out of the major airports in South Africa, both within the country and throughout the rest of southern Africa.

Andy

South African Airlink (who have just got an ex flybe 146 sorry to go off topic 😀 ) South African Express ,Nationwide and Comair are all safe. I would do LHR-CPT with SAA;)

James

Another option would be IAH-LGW-ACC-JNB on BA/CO (IAH-LGW) and Ghana International Airlines (LGW-ACC-JNB). Clearly JNB is quite far from CPT but you could easily get a flight between the two. You also get the added bonus of visiting Ghana.

IAH-LON-MAN-CPT on flyGlobespan is another option.

Gaz

Or you could fly IAH-LON-JNB/CPT with BA then use the BA flights operated by franchise operator Comair to get around down there.

That would have the advantage of doing the whole thing on one booking.

1L.

Your best bet is to transit through a European airlines hub that has an extensive African network, such as Amsterdam with KLM or Brussels with SN.

Alternitavely as Scott says fly into London, then on to South Africa with numerous airlines. SA are the safest option on domestic routes in my opinion by a mile!

South African should be safe, as should Nationwide, can’t say about others though.

Scott