APA – Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso) – The French airline suspended its flights to Burkina Faso at the beginning of August 2023, following the events in Niger.
The government will consider Air France’s request to resume flights to Burkina Faso, the Burkina news agency (AIB) reported on Thursday.
Citing “first-hand sources,” AIB added that the resumption of flights is conditional.
According to the agency, the transitional authorities have demanded that “the Quai d’Orsay first reconsider the country’s total red classification.”
It was this classification by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs that led to the suspension of flights on August 7, 2023, a few days after the coup d’état in Niger that overthrew Mohamed Bazoun.
The French airline then announced that it would resume flights on August 12, 2023, but was categorically refused by the National Agency for Civil Aviation (ANAC) on the grounds that it first had to obtain approval for its new flight schedule. Since then, Air France has repeatedly extended its suspension.
According to AIB, at the beginning of October, ANAC presented the Ministry of Transport with a request from Air France to resume flights to Burkina Faso.
The government insisted that the country be taken out of the “red zone” before responding positively.
Since Captain Traoré took power in September 2022, eight months after the coup d’état led by Lieutenant Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba against Roch Marc Christian Kaboré, relations between France and Burkina have deteriorated considerably.
SD/ac/lb/abj/APA