Air Gabon

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Air Gabon

Air Gabon was an airline based in Libreville, Gabon. It was the national airline of Gabon and operates services within West Africa and to South Africa and Europe. Its main base was Leon M'ba International Airport, Libreville. The airline ceased all operations on March 3, 2006 due to financial difficulties.

1 Code Data
2 History
- 2.1 Cease of Operations
3 Incidents and accidents
4 Services
5 Fleet
6 External links

[edit] Code Data

IATA Code: GN
ICAO Code: AGN
Callsign: GOLF NOVEMBER

[edit] History

Air Gabon was founded in 1951 as Compagnie Aerienne Gabonaise to fly local flights from Libreville with Beechcraft and DeHavilland aircraft. It became the national flag carrier in 1968 and was named Societe Nationale Air Gabon. It became known as TransGabon. In 1977 Gabon withdrew from the transnational Air Afrique and on 2 June 1977 the re-named Air Gabon flew its first intra-African flight from Libreville to Lome and Abidjan. The next day an international service from Libreville to Paris was introduced. By then two Fokker F28s, a Boeing 737-200 and a Boeing 747-200 were in use. By 1996 the Boeing 767 had been introduced.

Air Gabon restored Paris to Libreville flights in December 2004 with its Boeing 767-200, which had been grounded for three weeks in France due to technical and financial problems. The airline is reportedly unable to service its route network (Panapress 9 Dec 04).

Trans Air Congo currently operates some flights on behalf of Air Gabon following the recent loss of a Boeing 737-300 in a landing accident (report early 2005).

The airline is owned 100% by the Government of Gabon and Sofpag.

[edit] Cease of Operations

Reported by justplanes.com on March 3, 2006, the Government of Gabon has announced the same day the immediate liquidation of the bankrupt national carrier Air Gabon and its replacement by a new private airline named Air Gabon International which is controlled by Royal Air Maroc.

[edit] Incidents and accidents

In December 2003 an Air Gabon Boeing 737-3YO overran the runway at Libreville and crashed through the airport boundary fence. The aircraft was reportedly damaged beyond repair, but there were no serious injuries.

[edit] Services

Air Gabon operates the following services (at January 2005):

Domestic scheduled destinations: Franceville, Libreville and Port-Gentil.
International scheduled destinations: Abidjan, Bamako, Brazzaville, Cotonou, Dakar, Dubai, Douala, Johannesburg, Kinshasa, Lagos, Lomé, Luanda, Marseille, Paris, Pointe-Noire and Rome.

[edit] Fleet

The Air Gabon fleet consists of the following aircraft (at May 2005):

Previously the airline operated 1 Boeing 747-200, 2 Boeing 757-200 and another 2 Boeing 767 aircraft, all of which have been disposed of. The fleet also included 1 ATR 72 and 2 Fokker F28.