Air Zaïre
On 27 October 1971, the country changed its name from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the Republic of Zaire, and Air Congo changed its name to Air Zaïre. In the same year, the airline placed an order for three Boeing 737-200s, and occasionally operated Lockheed L-100 Hercules on lease from the Zairian government for cargo operations. The airline ordered two McDonnell Douglas DC-10s and five Boeing 737s on 3 January 1973. The DC-10s were delivered to the airline in 1973, and in February 1973, the airline announced that it was to acquire a Boeing 747-100. The 747 was operated on a lease and was only operational with the airline for approximately a year.[6] It was during this period that Zairian President Mobutu gained renown for commandeering aircraft belonging to the airline in order to transport himself and his entourage on shopping trips to Europe.[14][15] In the spring of 1973, it was reported that when traveling to West Germany, Mobutu requisitioned the Boeing 747 for himself, and utilized one of the airlines' DC-10s to transport his wife, leaving the airline short of jets for its own services.[16] A DC-4 of the airline was involved in an accident at Gemena on 7 April 1974, and on 9 January 1975 a Fokker 27 was involved at Boende, killing one person on the ground. On 3 March 1976, a Fokker 27 was written off in an accident in Angola. The three Boeing 737-200s which were ordered in 1973 joined the fleet during the 1970s, replacing some Fokkers and Caravelles. The addition of the Boeing twinjet allowed to network expansion with the addition of routes to Madrid, Abidjan, Bangui, Bujumbura, Conakry, Dakar, Libreville, Lomé and Luanda.[6] The airline ordered four Fokker F 27–500 turboprops in January 1981, however, the early 1980s saw the airline undergoing financial difficulties, and in order to ease pressure on the financial resources of the airline, one DC-8, one 737-200 and two F 27s were taken out of service. Due to the financial crisis, the airline also suspended all international flights, with the exception of those on the Kinshasa-Lagos-Brussels route.[6] In September 1983, Mobutu announced an austerity program, which would see some forty-seven parastatals, including Air Zaïre, being liquidated or reorganized to operate upon a commercial basis.[17] The government announced that staffing levels at the airline would be reduced by 6,500 to 2,500, and that a forty percent stake in the airline would be offered to prospective buyers.[18] In early 1985, the government signed a deal with the Israeli Tamman Group, giving the foreign company a forty percent stake in the airline, in return for a US$400 million investment in Zaire's transport and pharmaceutical industries,[19] however, the deal did not materialise.[20] By 1985 the airline was losing passengers, so much so that private carrier Scibe Airlift was carrying more domestic passengers than it,[21] and the Zairian government contracted French airline UTA to manage the airline for a six-year period. In June 1985 one of the DC-10s was offered to sale and was eventually bought by British Caledonian.[6] As negotiations to end apartheid in South Africa began in 1990, a number of African airlines which had previously flown to South Africa resumed flights; Air Zaïre began the operation of flights to Johannesburg in April 1991.[22]
The airline was declared bankrupt on 12 June 1995 by a Brussels court after incurring debts to the value of BFr1 billion, of which Sabena was a major creditor. The ruling was disputed by President Mobutu, who said that a Belgian court did not have the right to declare a Zairian company bankrupt and threatened to close Sabena's office in Kinshasa in retaliation. In response, the Belgian government offered the bankrupt carrier's landing rights to Scibe Airlift, an airline that was owned by a Mobutu family member. In 1998, it was reported that the airline had a total debt of BFr1.5 billion, including 700 million which was for social liabilities.
