{"id":51517,"date":"2026-07-15T00:53:17","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T00:53:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/51517\/"},"modified":"2026-07-15T00:53:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T00:53:17","slug":"air-france-shuts-mali-office-as-paris-sahel-air-links-unravel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/51517\/","title":{"rendered":"Air France shuts Mali office as Paris\u2013Sahel air links unravel"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n        taxi, please\n                    <\/p>\n<p>\n        The French carrier will close its Bamako office on 30 June, three years after suspending flights to Mali amid a sharp worsening of ties between France and Sahel military regimes.\n    <\/p>\n<p>\n        By<br \/>\n                                                                    AFP\n                                <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"img w-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/screenshot-2026-06-18-162604.png\" alt=\"A Malian soldier stands in front of an Air France plane at the Bamako airport on March 29, 2012.\" aria-label=\"A Malian soldier stands in front of an Air France plane at the Bamako airport on March 29, 2012.\" width=\"680\" height=\"453\" fetchpriority=\"high\"\/><\/p>\n<p>        A Malian soldier stands in front of an Air France plane at the Bamako airport on March 29, 2012. \u00a9 Issouf Sanogo\/AFP<\/p>\n<p>\n            Published<br \/>\n            on June 18, 2026<br \/>\n                            at<br \/>\n                15:30 pm (GMT +1)\n                    <\/p>\n<p>Air France has announced that it will permanently close its local office in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theafricareport.com\/country\/mali\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Mali<\/a>, where the French airline has not flown since 2023 because of the geopolitical situation in the Sahel, according to a letter seen by AFP on 17 June.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAir France\u2019s local office will cease operations from 30 June 2026,\u201d says the letter, dated 15 June. It does not give reasons for the decision.<\/p>\n<p>Air France, the main airline linking France and Africa, suspended flights to Bamako \u2013 seven a week \u2013 Ouagadougou \u2013 five a week \u2013 and Niamey \u2013 four a week \u2013 on 7 August 2023 after Niger closed its airspace. The closure followed the coup there on 26 July 2023.<\/p>\n<p>Two months after the suspension, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theafricareport.com\/419659\/malis-paradox-why-assimi-goita-remains-secure-as-the-sahel-burns\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Mali\u2019s ruling junta <\/a>had not authorised Air France to resume its Bamako route.<\/p>\n<p>Air traffic reshaped<\/p>\n<p>After military takeovers in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger between 2020 and 2023, relations between France and the new sovereigntist authorities sharply worsened.<\/p>\n<p>The geopolitical shift has reshaped air traffic. Air France\u2019s departure in 2023 was initially offset by Turkish Airlines and the French carrier Corsair.<\/p>\n<p>Corsair, which was still operating flights between Paris and Bamako, suspended \u201cflights to and from Bamako up to and including 26 June 2026\u201d on 27 May after coordinated attacks by jihadists from the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM), including in the capital, Bamako.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"taxi, please The French carrier will close its Bamako office on 30 June, three years after suspending flights&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":51518,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13058],"tags":[739,91,3309,7844,540,9568],"class_list":["post-51517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-air-france","tag-air-france","tag-business","tag-infrastructure","tag-mali","tag-transport","tag-what-we-know"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51517\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}