TAAG Angola Airlines Wants To Launch Houston Flights!!!

Such pure business routes are fascinating. This reminds me of the (sadly) long gone SAS 737 from Stavanger, Norway (Oil capital) to IAH, in an all business class configuration.

Are you sure???? I thought the Houston Express was initially operated by World Airways on behalf of the Angolan oil company using a MD-11, not Atlas using a 747-400. The World flight stopped in Sal, Cape Verde for refuelling.

Is there any reason for favouring LAD over the brand new NBJ? I thought TAAG already were in the process of moving across.

Nice nostalgic video of the 747-400 ... Long live the Queen ! Interesting color distinction with the Atlas livery on this ship.
Maybe Angola can arrange a code share or two with UA once FAA approval is granted for the service.
Is their inflight economy service really that much worse than the American carriers ? ( Really low bar here ! ) .

Then IAH would have service to all continents!

At one time, LAD appeared as a "coming soon" destination in DL's Sky Magazine (NBO and SSG also did at different times), as a tag-on to DL's ATL-ACC or ATL-LOS service. I was under the impression that the main reason none of those launched was that the FAA was not satisfied with security at those airports. I know KQ and NBO had to do a lot to launch their JFK flights many years later...

One word: OIL.

Pretty sure it was PrivatAir operating those 737s, not SAS.

Houstonian here. We are the most diverse city in the world. 4th largest city in the U.S. The African population in Houston is 100k plus. People will connect both ways from Houston to other cities as well as connecting in Luanda. Houston also has the Texas Medical Center the largest medical center in the world. A city in its own of 3 dozen hospitals specializing in world class cancer treatment , children’s hospitals , and research. This is where you go for treatment if you are wealthy.

Drill baby, drill

I know a retired oil guy who spent a fair amount of time in Angola. The bureaucracy there was hellish to deal with but he adored the people, the culture, and the beaches and felt like if the country made a push for it, it had everything needed to be a world class beach destination someday.

It was SAS using a wet-leased PrivateAir jet.

In an “oil” business class formation.

I doubt there will be may connecting flights to other parts of Africa, on the account of the fact that firstly, TAAG needs to build up a better network of African destinations for them to connect too, but more importantly, the location of Angola is disadvantageous to connect to any part of Africa, except probably the Southern/Central Africa. AFAIK Houston's African population is mainly of West African decent, and this would require a major detour.