Ghana Airways

[1][4] The airline's relationship with West African Airways ceased on 30 September, and on 1 October they began operating the domestic and regional flights formerly offered by WAAC.

Ghanaian President Kwame Nkrumah was accused of being too aligned to the West, and hence he entered into agreements with the Soviets and on 18 August, six Ilyushin Il-18s, at a cost of £670,000 each, were ordered.

The aircraft entered service on routes from Accra to Lagos and Dakar, to Addis Ababa via Kano, and Nairobi via Léopoldville.

[9] A weekly Britannia service to Beirut, via Kano and Cairo, was inaugurated on 4 February 1961, making Ghana Airways the first West African airline to serve the Lebanese capital.

In June 1961, Ghana Airways commenced the first-ever non-stop Accra-London air connection, also using Britannias, and in July the government announced that the airline would be reorganized.

A weekly flight from Accra to Kumasi, Tamale, Ouagadougou, Mopti, Ségou and Bamako was inaugurated on 4 July 1962 utilising a Douglas DC-3.

[19] The airline signed a lease agreement with Swissair in October 1963 for the wet-lease operation of Convair 990 jetliners on the Accra-London route.

The first VC10 was delivered to Accra on 18 December 1964 and initially conducted proving and training flights, before entering service on 15 February 1965 on the route to London.

At this time the airline had added new international destinations to their route network, which included Amsterdam, Douala, Frankfurt, Jeddah, Libreville, and Niamey.

The airline's DC-10 also visited the West Indies on behalf of Caribbean Airways, thanks to a wet-lease contract, renewed in January 1986, which saw the aircraft operating twice-weekly services to Barbados from London's Gatwick Airport in between its regular Accra-London rotations.

An official at the airport confirmed that a similar incident occurred on 6 January, after 40 passengers were stranded by the airline after the flight arrived in Banjul ahead of schedule.

[29] After the seizure, Sam Jonah, then-airline chairman, stated that Ghana Airways was some US$160 million in debt, and the airline would require a foreign partner if it were to survive.

Nationwide, which beat out rival British Midland, as part of the deal would not take on liabilities for the debts of the national airline.

[31] In February 2003, Richard Anane, the Minister of Roads and Transport, announced that the government had withdrawn from the deal with Nationwide Airlines.

[32] It was announced in June 2003 that British Midland had entered into an agreement with the Ghanaian government for the creation of Fly Ghana Limited.

According to the spokesman of the USDOT, the airline had utilised an aircraft which the Federal Aviation Administration had ordered to be grounded on flights to New York City and Baltimore on 24 and 26 July, respectively.

Kwadwo Mpiani, the Presidential Chief of Staff, stated that the measures were necessary in order to prevent further damage coming to the national airline.

[35] The comments followed on from an incident the week previous when angry passengers took a Ghana Airways pilot hostage at Kokota International Airport, after they had waited for some days for their flights on the airline.

[37] Unable to keep up with its debt repayments, and due to the government refusal to pump more money into the airline, Ghana Airways was liquidated in June 2005.

[38] In December 2008, the government released some $2.25 million to the liquidator to pay the final instalment in severance claims to ex-employees of Ghana Airways.