► NIGER: Turkish Airlines to start 3x weekly Niamey, Ouagadougou flights from December.

Following the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding and a Bilateral Air Services Agreement between the Governments of Niger and Turkey in May, the Nigerien ministries of Foreign Affairs and Transport today  announced that Turkish Airlines is to start flights between Turkey, Niger and Burkina Faso effective mid December.

► SENEGAL: Air Cote d'Ivoire to debut with Dakar on 12 November.

Following last week's deferment, made public by Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara, Air Cote d'Ivoire (HF) has announced it will launch scheduled flights on 12 November with Abidjan - Dakar, Senegal to be its launch route.

► BURKINA FASO: Ariella Airlines launches with aid of Spain's IMD Airways.

Burkina Faso now has a second operator in addition to Air Burkina (2J); Ariella Airlines has now started operations with its first route being Ouagadougou - Bamako (Mali) - Pointe Noire (Congo Brazzaville) and Pointe Noire (Congo Brazzaville) - Cotonou (Benin) - Bamako (Mali) - Ouagadougo.

► KENYA: FastJet shows off livery (Pics); Fly540 brand to go.

Following on from this week's acquisition of Lonrho Aviation (t/a Fly540), FastJet Ghana's parent company Rubicon Investments, of which Stelios Haji-Ioannou of EasyJet fame is a 5% shareholder, has outlined its plans and future prospects for the transformation of and integration of Fly540 into a Pan-African LCC giant.

A Low Cost Carrier headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya, Fly540 has franchises in Angola, Ghana, Tanzania and Ghana, and operates ATR 72s, CRJ-100s, DHC 8-100s and McDonnell Douglas DC 9s. Collectively, its route network includes various cities in Kenya, Tanzania, Angola, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Burundi, Liberia, Nigeria, South Sudan and Uganda.

A FastJet Airbus A319 rendering

In its beginning stages, FastJet will coexist with Fly540, whilst the former moves to build a fleet using either Airbus A319s, Boeing 737-700s and/or Embraer EMB-190s. Once fleet consolidation is achieved as per the classic LCC model (a uniform fleet keeps maintenance costs down), Fly540's current aircraft leases are to be allowed to expire, before the brand itself is phased out, leaving FastJet as the main driving force.

Ultimately, FastJet aims to carry more than 12 million passengers a year, by focussing on Africa's burgeoning middle class - a phenomenon that is fast becoming a reality in Angola, Kenya and Nigeria, where substantial economic growth in recent years has meant more money in the pocket for the ordinary man on the street.

""If you take the four countries, they have a total population of 100 million people. If you estimate that all our customers come from just those countries alone, you could see three million of them becoming customers with us, flying a couple of times a year. That would generate something like 12.8 million passengers [annually]." "

Read More Here [GhanaWeb]

At the helm of FastJet will be many of Haji-Ioannou's colleagues from his days at EasyJet: Richard Boden, a former Contracts Manager at EasyJet, Ed Winter, FastJet's new CEO and formerly easyJet's Chief Operating Officer, whilst Haji-Ioannou himself, will be a consultant.

► BURKINA FASO: Air Burkina signs code-share with Air France.

Air Burkina (2J), the Burkinabe regional airline, is to extend its coverage to include France, with the recent signing of a code sharing agreement with Air France.

Effective 1 June, Air France has been allocating Air Burkina an unspecified number of seats on Air France's daily flight between Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Ouagadougou that is operated by either an Airbus A330 or A340.

Air Burkina's Route Map

"Dominique Patry, Vice President International Affairs and Alliances Air France, stated “this partnership agreement fits into a long-term cooperation perspective. It offers an additional illustration of Air France’s strategy in Africa, aiming to work with local partners. Our ultimate ambition is to offer our customers new regional destinations operated by Air Burkina”. "

Read More Here [Air France]

Currently, Air Burkina flies to 11 cities around West Africa and will provide KLM/Air France with an important foothold into the fast growing West African aviation scene and is a development which KLM/Air France hopes to implement on other routes in West and Central Africa as well as in France and Europe.