The story
The airline was established on 17 March 1967 under the name Air Volta, while the country was called the Republic of Upper Volta. The airline was renamed Air Burkina in 1984, following the country's name change to Burkina Faso. It was originally part owned by the Burkinabé government, part by Air France and part privately held. It purchased its first aircraft, an Embraer EMB-110 Bandeirante, in 1978, and added a second, a Fokker F28, in 1983.
Over the years, the airline has had serious debt problems, reaching a deficit of one billion CFA francs in 1992 (approx. €1,500,000). In part to address its debt problem, the Burkina Faso government privatised Air Burkina on 21 February 2001, transferring 56% of the shares to the AKFED/IPS consortium, part of the Aga Khan Development Network. At that time, the government retained 14% of shares. In 2001, following Air Burkina's privatisation and the liquidation of Air Afrique, the airline's debt had largely been alleviated and it was predicting an annual revenue of around 3.5 billion CFA francs (more than €5 million).
The company saw a general strike in 2002, when workers demanded a 25% wage increase. In the resulting conflict, the director-general of Air Burkina was forced to resign.
In August 2013, press reports said that the majority shareholder, AKFED & IPS, will be called in for talks by the government after its most recent Council of Ministers meeting resolved to discuss the airline's financial state. According to the Burkinabé Ministry of Infrastructure & Transport, a report presented to the government claimed the Burkinabé national carrier "faces a difficult financial and economic situation." In May 2017, it was announced that the government had taken over the management of Air Burkina, following the signing of a contract of management cessation with AKFED, with the sale of shares to be made at a symbolic franc. There were also reports that a new investor was being sought.
In October 2020, a transfer agreement was signed between the State of Burkina Faso and the American company African Global Development (AGD) as part of a new privatization effort for Air Burkina, however, in 2026, Air Burkina was fully nationalized by the Ibrahim Traoré administration, reverting the privatization effort.
From Wikipedia’s article on Air Burkina, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4