Compagnie Nationale Air Guinée, in its latter years known as Air Guinee Express, was an airline based in Conakry, Guinea. Its main base was Conakry International Airport.

Air Guinée was the first national airline of Guinea; it had its head office in Kaloum, Conakry. Founded in 1960, the company was privatised in 1992, and was eventually dissolved in 2002; remaining portions of the business continued as Air Guinee Express, which operated domestic services.

Code data for Air Guinee Express

  • IATA Code: 2U
  • ICAO Code: GIP
  • Callsign: FUTURE EXPRESS

History

Air Guinee

When the idea of Air Afrique was being mooted, Guinea and Mali opted not to join the consortium with other, mainly French West African, nations, and instead chose to form their own national airlines. In March 1960 the Guinean government signed a series of agreements with the Soviet Union, one of which provided for the supply of aircraft, crews and other technical assistance, ostensibly aimed at upgrading Conakry's airport. The company was founded by decree N°048/PRG/ on 31 December 1960, with technical support from the Soviets, who also supplied an aircraft: an Ilyushin Il-14. The aircraft originated from Czechoslovakia and was crewed by Czechoslovak crews. Operations began before the end of the year, with flights from Conakry to Boké and Kankan, both of which had previously been operated by Union Aéromaritime de Transport. Service to Bamako commenced shortly afterwards, and the route was shared between Air Guinée, UAT and Air France. In April 1961, Air Guinée was nationalised. On 9 July 1967 one of the airline's Il-18s was written off in an accident at Casablanca. The aircraft was on a scheduled flight to Prague when due to bad weather it was diverted to Casablanca. On landing, its left wing hit a building, causing the aircraft to crash into "rough ground". There were no fatalities amongst the 102 occupants on board, but the aircraft had to be written off.

In the 1970s the fleet was expanded with the addition of one Boeing 707, one Boeing 727-100 and one Boeing 737-200. An Air Guinée Il-18 crashed at Conakry on 3 September 1978, killing 15 of the 17 on board. Its operations were taken over by Groupe Futurelec and the airline rebranded as Air Guinée Express.