Korongo Airlines

Korongo Airlines

IATA ZC ICAO KGO Callsign KORONGO
Founded	15 December 2009
Hubs	Lubumbashi International Airport
Fleet size	3 (planned)
Destinations
Parent company	Brussels Airlines (35.35%), Forrest Group (34.65%), Local DRC investors (30,00%)
Headquarters	Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of the Congo
Key people	Christophe Allard (managing director); George Forrest (chairman of the board)
Website	flykorongo.com

Korongo Airlines sprl (after the Swahili term for large black birds), is a proposed airline, which will be based at Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, operating scheduled regional passenger flights. The airline project is a joint-venture between Brussels Airlines and the Belgian multinational Groupe George Forrest International, with full support from Brussels Airlines' parent company Lufthansa.

The first revenue flights will be from Lubumbashi to Kinshasa and Johannesburg. This is planned for March or April 2012.

History

airDC

airDC logo

Boeing 737-300 in Korongo Airlines livery.

The efforts of Brussels Airlines to create a subsidiary in the DR Congo, a former Belgian colony, date back to October 2007, when a cooperation with Hewa Bora Airways was announced, which resulted in the establishing of airDC (the name derived from the French pronunciation of RDC, the abbreviation for DR Congo) as a joint-venture. The newly formed airline was planned to launch commercial flights out of N'djili Airport during 2008. The date was later postponed indefinitely.

New partners

On 15 December 2009, Brussels Airlines declared the discontinuation of the airDC project, and the launch of Korongo Airlines as a sequel, with an initial funding of 10 million Euros. Korongo Airlines will be owned to 70 percent by a holding company (which in turn is owned to 50,5% by Brussels Airlines and to 49,5% by George Forrest International), with the remaining 30% being in the hands of Congolese investors. On 13 April 2010, the company was officially registered.

Ready to fly

Since early 2011 around 90 well trained people of Korongo Airlines are waiting to start working for the airline in Lubumbashi. As from June 2011 the aircraft are ready, the maintenance hangar is finished and approved by the local authorities. Korongo Airlines is now awaiting final approval from the Congolese authorities, who are still reluctant as it would force many local competitors to heavy investments which they can't afford. Brussels Airlines and Lufthansa are maintaining their support for the project, although some rumors are indicating that an investment in RwandAir could easily replace the Korongo project, taking into account that the former has already started operations and is searching a healthy European support in order to continue to finance its operations. Such a project would speed up Brussels Airlines expansion in Africa, and at the same time save money.

On October 28, 2011 it was unofficially announced that Korongo Airlines would cease all operations in the next couple of weeks due problems with the Congolese authorities. Even though Korongo Airlines has everything in order to start operations, including almost all necessary papers, it became clear that the Congolese authorities wouldn't allow Korongo Airlines to operate in the DRC. Since no progress had been made in the negotiations, the owners decided not to invest further in the company and chose to close it in the next couple of weeks. A dispute between the Forrest Group and the Congolese government is likely the main reason of the failure. Besides the dispute the government wasn't eager to let a foreign company (even with a Congolese AOC) which would be 100% IOASA compliant and overseen by the Belgian Aviation Authorities operate in their country because this would mean that other DRC airlines would have to invest large amounts of money to follow the safety standards set by Korongo Airlines.

In February 2012, it was announced that Korongo would start in the spring of 2012. They would need about 8 weeks to relaunch the airline and get it operating, first operations could start in March or April. Korongo Airlines will offer regular services between Lubumbashi and Kinshasa as well as between Lubumbashi and Johannesburg, both on Boeing 737. Very soon thereafter, Mbuji Maji and Kolwezi will be added to the network from Lubumbashi by BAe146. Korongo is also planning flights from Lubumbashi to Kampala, Kigali and Bujumbura. The latter two are destinations of Brussels Airlines out of Brussels, thus offering more connections between each other's networks.

Fleet

The Korongo Airlines fleet will consist of the following used aircraft handed over by Brussels Airlines, which had originally been planned to form the airDC fleet:

Korongo Fleet (planned)

Aircraft	Total	Registration	Passengers (Business/Economy)
Boeing 737-300	1	OO-LTM	126 (12/114)
British Aerospace 146-200	2	OO-MJE OO-DJJ	82 (0/82)

The three aircraft are already painted in the Korongo colours, but still flying for Brussels Airlines.

The maintenance for Korongo Airlines will be executed by Brussels Airlines, because the European Union decided to impose a ban on all airlines with technical support from the DR Congo. Consequently, Brussels Airlines confirmed in July 2010 the signing of a contract with George Forrest to build a maintenance hangar at Lubumbashi International Airport, which is now ready to be used. On 20 April 2011, Korongo Airlines was indeed added to the EU blacklist.

External links

• (English)/(French) Official website of Korongo Airlines