• Air Côte d’Ivoire is expecting to receive its first Airbus A330-900neo on 29 Aug 2025, marking entry into long-haul operations.
• Daily Abidjan–Paris flights begin 18 Sept 2025 with a 242-seat, four-class layout, expanding passenger and cargo options.
• Aircraft financing secured via a US$76.6m Sukuk from BADEA and BOAD, supporting the airline’s first wide-body fleet expansion.

Air Côte d’Ivoire will take formal custody of its first Airbus A330-900 on Friday, 29 August 2025, the same wide-body that completed its maiden test flight in early August. The aircraft, leased through a US$76.6 million Islamic-compliant Sukuk facility arranged by BADEA and the West African Development Bank, is the first of two A330 neos scheduled for delivery this year and marks the airline’s graduation from an all-narrow-body operator to a long-haul network player.

Daily nonstop service to Paris-Charles de Gaulle opens for reservation on 18 September 2025, departing Abidjan at 23:30 and arriving CDG at 06:30 the next morning. The 242-seat quad-class layout—featuring business, premium economy, and economy classes—offers passengers a new late-evening option that arrives in time for the first European bank of connecting flights. Cargo agents are closely monitoring the exact timetable, as the A330-900’s underfloor capacity enables the same-day delivery of several goods from and to both Paris and Abidjan.

The new route enters a competitive arena that already stretches well beyond Paris. Brussels Airlines maintains a five-times-weekly triangle routing via Ouagadougou and Accra, Royal Air Maroc funnels Abidjan traffic through Casablanca with eleven weekly frequencies, and Ethiopian Airlines offers daily connections via Addis Ababa to both CDG and Brussels. None of these carriers, however, can replicate what Air Côte d’Ivoire can now leverage: a 29-route West and Central African network, 21 of which are regional, connecting passengers and pallets through a single mid-Atlantic hub.

As we advance, Dakar, Cotonou, Lomé, and Bangui should all connect with transit times of less than ninety minutes, enabling perishables from landlocked capitals to reach European supermarkets within a day. With the second A330-900 due before December and certification to be secured, the airline has signaled that London, Geneva, Washington, and New York (already covered through code-sharing with Ethiopian Airlines) are the next logical spokes once Paris proves the model.

Idriss Linge