Air Côte d’Ivoire is the national airline of the Republic of Côte d’Ivoire. The small African carrier will soon be spreading its wings in a major way, as the airline will start taking delivery of wide body aircraft, and operating long haul flights. Along those lines, details of the carrier’s first long haul route have just been made official…
In this post:
Air Côte d’Ivoire launching Abidjan to Paris flights soon
In the coming days, Air Côte d’Ivoire is expected to take delivery of its first of two Airbus A330-900neos, which will be in a very premium configuration (so premium that even Delta might be jealous), even featuring first class. The airline has now published the schedule for the first route this plane will operate.
As of September 18, 2025, Air Côte d’Ivoire will launch daily flights between Abidjan (ABJ) and Paris (CDG), with the following schedule:
HF176 Abidjan to Paris departing 2:30PM arriving 11:00PM
HF177 Paris to Abidjan departing 8:00AM arriving 12:30PM
The 3,037-mile flight is blocked at 6hr30min in each direction. As mentioned above, Air Côte d’Ivoire will use an A330-900neo for this service, featuring first class, business class, premium economy, and economy. The flight has now been filed in the schedule, but it’s not yet bookable.
That schedule is not what I would’ve expected:
- The plane will always have a short turn in Abidjan, while overnighting in Paris; it must be more expensive to park a plane there for nine hours, no?
- In terms of staffing, presumably flight attendants and pilots will have a layover in Paris of two nights, rather than one
- Clearly this flight is focused on connections beyond Abidjan, rather than connections beyond Paris, as that lines up with a (small) bank of regional flights
The market between Abidjan and Paris is rather competitive, as it’s also operated by Air France and Corsair. This is more premium than most people realize — for example, this is the only destination in Africa where Air France offers its La Premiere first class. Back in the day, Air France even operated its A380 to Abidjan.
I’ve gotta find a way to take this flight!
I’ve been fascinated by Air Côte d’Ivoire taking delivery of its new Airbus A330-900neo. It’s arguably Africa’s most premium heavy wide body jet, and it’s also the first new airline we’ve seen to introduce a four-cabin first class since the launch of Starlux Airlines.
So once these flights are on sale, I’m going to make an effort to book this, given that I try to review all first class products. I just hope that there’s some semi-decent pricing if connecting to somewhere else. After all, the point-to-point pricing between Paris and Abidjan on existing operators is incredibly high, and I can’t imagine that Air Côte d’Ivoire will look to undercut them too much.
This is part of a bigger Africa aviation “tour” I’d like to do, as there are four other airlines in the region that I really want to check out ASAP, including visiting my good friends at TAAG Angola Airlines at their new hub. 😉
Air Côte d’Ivoire is obviously very excited about this new route. The airline even held a contest to decide which chef will be catering the inflight meals:
Chef KONAN Vanessa is the winner!
We are thrilled to intreoduce the chef who will sign the menu for our upcoming Abidjan-Paris flights.
To take advantage of this fantastic chance, excellent chefs from our country competed fiercely for several months, using their creativity to outdo one another.
Following the jury’s deliberation, which included our most loyal customers, at a final event held at our partner SERVAIR’s location, KONAN Vanessa received recognition and will have the privilege of designing the menus that will wow our passengers during their Abidjan-Paris flights.
Bottom line
In the coming weeks, Air Côte d’Ivoire plans to launch daily flights between Abidjan and Paris using its brand new Airbus A330-900neos. It’s always fun to see a new operator get wide body aircraft, and as a premium product geek, I’m especially intrigued by the carrier offering first class on these planes.
I’m anxiously awaiting these flights going on sale, and am hoping there’s some sort of decent first class pricing between some combination of markets.
What do you make of Air Côte d’Ivoire launching Paris flights?
It's not entirely true that Abidjan is a premium market. While Air France has drawn premium numbers (relatively) mostly on the strength of their wider network, everyone else has historically struggled to compete on any basis other than price sensitive volumes. I don't expect to see HF challenge Air France's yields simply due to lack of network access (and the schedule's lack of connection opportunity at the Paris end anyway).
As I said a...
It's not entirely true that Abidjan is a premium market. While Air France has drawn premium numbers (relatively) mostly on the strength of their wider network, everyone else has historically struggled to compete on any basis other than price sensitive volumes. I don't expect to see HF challenge Air France's yields simply due to lack of network access (and the schedule's lack of connection opportunity at the Paris end anyway).
As I said a few months ago in an interview elsewhere, unfortunately Air Cote D'Ivoire is one of those African airlines that lives in a bubble where the management believes that their target market has the same value, spending power and preferences that they do. That delusion unfortunately leads to decision making completely out of touch with reality, and consequent ego driven vanity projects doomed to failure in the medium term.
I've even said those exact words to their face and they just laughed. We'll see who has the last laugh this time next year.
I unfortunately agree, I'm afraid we'll have the same fate as Air Sénégal...
Any idea what the First Class cabin is like?
@ Motion to Dismiss -- You'll see it in the video, it's the first row of seats. It looks more like a "business class plus" product than a proper first class.
Green vegetables in short supply in West Africa?
Very white of you to notice.
Beige Jack, beige.
I'm waiting for someone to complain about this article. "Why are you JUST NOW telling us that you are an AVgeek and that is why you have been publishing these AVgeek articles all these years?"
I'm sure people in the Ivory Coast will love your nonstop photo taking
@ Chris W -- More broadly, it's part of the adventure of Africa review trips!
Ivory Coast is a thousand times more relaxed with photos than Angola, and the Plateau area in Abidjan is one of the most sophisticated cities in sub-Saharan Africa.