Since 1968, Africair has been supporting aircraft operations in Africa. We have owned and managed significant aviation operations in both East and West Africa. In East Africa, we owned a large charter operation and a Bell CSF. In West Africa, we operated a fleet of Bell helicopters and Cessna fixed wing aircraft for over 30 years. We currently support over 300 operators with approximately 1,500 aircraft. Currently, we operate a fully equipped and staffed Citation Limited Line Maintenance facility in Abuja, Nigeria to help support local operators and train local personnel to enhance their support capabilities for both fixed and rotor wing aircraft.
Our African territory is unique in that it covers an enormous geographical area, but the population of aircraft is widely dispersed. Consequently, it does not make sense to establish multiple facilities around continent. When we have a project in Africa we embed our personnel within the end-user’s operation.
We have active parts supply relationships with many of the air forces and paramilitary organizations in our territory, including, the Royal Moroccan Air Force, Algerian Air Force, Mauritanian Air Force, Burkina Faso Air Force, Cameroon Air Force & BIR, Nigerian Police Air Wing, Nigerian Customs Service, Kenya Police Air Wing, Kenya Wildlife Service, Tanzanian Air Force, Ugandan Police Air Wing, Zambian Air Force and others.
We currently have a liaison office in Nairobi, Kenya, with three full-time employees. We also have employees based in Ghana, Angola, and Algeria. We also maintain strong relationships with all of the competent maintenance facilities in Africa and can call upon them for support or assistance.
Our group of companies is perhaps the most experienced organization in the world when it comes to supporting the Cessna Caravan. We are the Cessna Caravan sales leader every year. We own a fleet of 10 Caravans that we lease to others or operate ourselves. Our sister company, Propel Aviation Sales & Services, LLC, is an EASA and FAA Certified 145 Repair Station and an Authorized Cessna Service Station for the entire range of propeller products, based in Miami, Florida. PASS has 9 licensed mechanics (4 with IA authority) and 2 mechanic’s assistants as well as five Customer Service Representatives and an outstanding General Manager who are all eagerly engaged in the sale and support of Cessna products they support and maintain. Propel’s technicians install aftermarket STC’s and modifications to a number of the aircraft we export to Africa and they often travel into Africair’s territories to support our customers’ support requirements when the Africair personnel are traveling elsewhere.
Between our organizations and personnel we have conducted in country support for operators in Guadeloupe, Morocco, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ecuador, Colombia, Germany, South Africa, Libya, and Egypt. We have also conducted training courses for both pilots and engineers in Miami for customers from Angola, Kenya, Colombia, Libya, Iraq (through our USAF sub-contract), and Ethiopia. In East Africa we hold regular “Caravan Operators Conferences” in conjunction with Pratt & Whitney, Garmin, and Cessna. These seminars cover a range of topics regarding operational safety and procedures.
At Africair, we have 7 A&P’s that have attended factory training on a variety of Cessna products and we have another eight A&P’s on staff, three avionics engineers, and a total of 12 pilots employed by our company – all of whom have a vast range of experience in the Cessna product line. When needed, we contract pilots and engineers for in-country training for months at a time to support program implementation in Ethiopia, Suriname, Angola, Egypt, Nigeria, and other countries. Our employees speak English, French, Creole, Portuguese, Spanish, German, Arabic, Hindi, Farsi, and Swahili.
All of this establishes that the Africair group of companies have significant resources (financial, staffing, training and tactical knowledge) committed to supporting the Cessna and Bell products that we sell and service.
