Africa Skies is GA's weekly magazine on the contest for Africa's air corridors. Most of the intercontinental routes linking the continent to the world's markets are flown by carriers that are not African, and from the Gulf giants to Europe's flag carriers and Asia's fast-growing airlines, a battle is under way to capture Africa's passenger and freight flows. Behind the timetables lie economic, geopolitical and strategic choices: routes opened or closed, hubs built or lost, traffic rights negotiated, alliances signed. Each week, Africa Skies reports one of those contests from the ground — the players, the strategies and the consequences — in both directions of GA's lens: the international carriers at work on African ground, and Africa's own airlines and hubs in the world. It is not an aviation programme; it is a magazine about power and interests, of which aviation is the terrain. Its question never changes: who connects Africa to the world, and on whose terms?
01 — Who Flies Africa? — The map of the continent's intercontinental routes: Gulf, European and Asian carriers against African operators. Where the passengers and the freight go, and who carries them. Pilot.
02 — The Gulf Model — Emirates, Qatar Airways, Etihad: how three hubs in the desert became Africa's gateway to Asia, and what the model costs the airlines it replaced.
03 — Addis Ababa, the African Hub — Ethiopian Airlines, the continent's one global network: what it takes to build a hub, and why no other African carrier has managed it.
04 — Europe Holds the Line — Air France-KLM and Lufthansa Group on the historic corridors: the yields, the alliances, and the competition arriving from the east.
05 — The Istanbul Effect — Turkish Airlines, one of the widest African networks of any airline: how a single hub redrew the map between Africa, Europe and Asia.
06 — Asia's New Corridors — Direct routes between African and Asian cities: the traffic behind them, the airlines flying them, and the trade that follows.
07 — The Cargo Business — Flowers out of Nairobi, medicines in, e-commerce everywhere: who carries Africa's air freight, where it transits, and who sets the rate.
08 — Open Skies, Closed Doors — The Single African Air Transport Market and the traffic rights that keep it grounded: why foreign carriers profit from a fragmented sky.
09 — Who Owns the Aircraft? — Boeing, Airbus, Embraer, COMAC, and the lessors in Dublin who own most of Africa's fleet: the order book, the financing, the leverage.
10 — The Airport Concession — Terminals built, financed and run from abroad: what a concession contract gives away, what it brings in, and who decides.
11 — The National Carrier, Again — State airlines relaunched with foreign partners and foreign capital: Kigali, Kampala, Dar es Salaam. Sovereignty, or a new dependency?
12 — Africa's Skies in 2035 — Season synthesis: the players, the hubs, the routes. Will Africa be connected to the world by its own carriers, or by others?