Delta Air Lines on Wednesday announced that it will expand its African route network in January by offering the first-ever direct passenger service between the U.S. and Luanda, Angola.
Luanda will represent the eight destination of Delta’s African network. Flights will operate three times per week between Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and Luanda with an intermediate stop in Dakar, Senegal.
“Delta is committed to expanding our presence into fast-growing African markets to better serve our global business travelers. This new service will shave hours off of business travelers’ itineraries between the U.S. and Angola thanks to more direct routings via the world’s largest airline hub in Atlanta,” said Perry Cantarutti, Delta’s senior vice president of Europe, Middle East and Africa.
Delta will use 243-seat Airbus A330-200 aircrafts for its new African route. Angola is one of the fastest growing business travel destinations in Africa and has recorded double-digit growth in annual travelers for the past several years.
Delta also is working with TAAG Angolan Airlines for TAAG to codeshare on the flights at a future date. The new service also marks a return of nonstop service between Atlanta and Dakar, in addition to the current New York-Dakar service. Only another city, Accra, Ghana, currently enjoys nonstop service to the two Delta hubs.
In the last couple of years, Delta has increased its weekly departures to Africa from 22 in 2007 to approximately 80 in the current year. In addition to Lauda, Delta provides services to Accra, Ghana; Abuja, Nigeria; Cairo, Egypt; Dakar, Senegal; Johannesburg, South Africa; Lagos, Nigeria; and Monrovia, Liberia.
The U.S. air carrier intends to add two more African destinations to its network, Malabo, Equatorial Guinea and Nairobi, Kenya, once the U.S. approvals are received.
