Africa World Airlines


Africa World Airlines Limited is a Ghanaian airline company with its head office in Accra, Ghana, and its main hub at Kotoka International Airport in Accra.

History

Africa World Airlines was incorporated in 2010 and commenced flights in 2012. It is a joint venture between Hainan Airlines, China-Africa Development Fund, SSNIT and SAS Finance Group.
AWA became a full member of IATA in October 2017.
AWA suspended domestic passenger operations in March 2020 due to the spread of COVID-19 in Ghana, but resumed operations in April 2020 following expiry of inter-city movement restrictions.
AWA continues to operate humanitarian flights to repatriate Ghanaians stranded abroad during the period of closed borders.

Fleet

Current fleet

The Africa World Airlines fleet consists of the following aircraft :

Fleet development

Africa World Airlines took delivery on 30 August 2012 of its first Embraer 145 aircraft that was used to operate domestic routes.
. A second aircraft was delivered on 8 September 2012. The airline added a third aircraft in 2013 and a further five aircraft between 2016 and 2019. All these aircraft were previously operated by Tianjin Airlines which is a sister company within the HNA Group.

Destinations

Africa World Airlines operated the following scheduled services as of June 2020.
CountryCityAirportNotesRefs
Cote D'IvoireAbidjanFélix-Houphouët-Boigny International AirportSuspended
GhanaAccraKotoka International Airport
GhanaKumasiKumasi Airport
GhanaTakoradiTakoradi Airport
GhanaTamaleTamale Airport
GhanaWaWa AirportSuspended
LiberiaMonroviaRoberts International AirportSuspended
NigeriaAbujaNnamdi Azikiwe International AirportSuspended
NigeriaLagosMurtala Muhammed International AirportSuspended
Sierra LeoneFreetownLungi International AirportSuspended

Partnerships

In 2019, AWA signed a Memorandum of Understanding with South African Airways to jointly pursue opportunities in West Africa, including a system-wide codeshare agreement and other commercial partnerships. The codeshare went into effect in October 2019.
The airline also announced an interline partnership with Emirates to provide domestic and regional feed to their flights at Kotoka International Airport in Accra.
AWA also signed a partnership with Ethiopian Airlines and ASKY to offer seamless travel within the West African region.
In October 2019, AWA and Brussels Airlines concluded an interline partnership to connect passengers through their joint networks.
AWA and Air Burkina announced in January 2020 that they had concluded a partnership for passengers to connect from Ouagadougou through Accra to Lagos, Abuja and Abidjan.
Africa World Airlines and Cabo Verde Airlines also announced a partnership effective from February 2020 to improve connectivity in West Africa between their respective networks.

Awards and recognition

Africa World Airlines has been recognised as "Domestic Airline of the Year" in Ghana for 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018.
In September 2019, the airline was inducted into the CIMG Hall of Fame after being voted the winner in the "Domestic Airline of the Year" category for five consecutive years.
In October 2019, Africa World Airlines received the 2019 AviaTour award for "Best Passenger Experience".
Africa World Airlines was also recognised as "Best Airline in West Africa" for 2019 by the Balafon Travel Awards being held during the Accra Weizo 2019 travel conference and exhibition.
In December 2019, the prestigious Routes Africa Awards honored the airline with the Airline Excellence Award for "Innovation and Capacity Growth" in recognition for AWA's steady growth and creative marketing.