AIR AFRIQUE
While the DC-10 lost many orders in North America, the Douglas trijet gained a large numbers of orders in Europe and made a full sweep in South America, Australia and Africa. An early costumer for the DC-10 was Air Afrique, which signed a contract for three DC-10-30s + two options in February of 1970 and finally placing the order on August 7th of the same year, two weeks before the first DC-10 made its maiden flight. So Air Afrique became the first costumer for the DC-10 in Africa. Shortly after the first DC-10 arrived on February 28th 1973, the aircraft became very popular and Air Afrique's subsidiaries in the different countries (Air Afrique is a multinational carrier for most of the french-speaking west-african countries) wanted to have the DC-10 at least once a week in their country. TU-TAL (#77) replaced the DC-8s on the routes to Marseille and Paris with its initial flight for Air Afrique on March 13th. The second aircraf, TU-TAM (#204), followed on June 19th of 1975 while the third, TU-TAN (#288) arrived on August 10th 1979. Although the two options were not taken up, the DC-10 was the airline's flagship on the routes to Europe as well as on some routes within Africa. When smaller widebody aircraft became available in the 1980s, Air Afrique acquired some A300-600s and A310s for the african routes, while the DC-10 flew the european network. As the DC-10s became older and the financial weak carrier needed to reduce the capacity, the DC-10s, which were often very empty, became surplus so that the first aircraft was sold in March of 1993. The second one left in 1996, while TU-TAM remained (leased to AOM) until 1998 when Air Afrique's Douglas era came to an end. A short-time lease during the Hadj seasons of 1997 and 1998 brought the all-time fleet to 5 aircraft. The airline suspended operations in 2002 after a long financial crisis.
| Registration | Aircraft | Fleetnr./Name | Operated from - to | Where is it now? |
| TU-TAL | 46890/ 77 | Libreville | 28.02.1973 - 06.02.1985 and 13.11.1986 - 06.1996 | WRITTEN OFF |
| TU-TAM | 46892/ 204 | 19.03.1973 - 11.1996 | -stored- | |
| TU-TAN | 46997/ 288 | Niamey | 10.07.1979 - 23.02.1995 | -stored- |
| PP-OOO | 48258/ 346 | 1998 - 1998 | -stored- | |
| V2-LER | 48294/ 372 | 02.1997 - 1997 | -stored- |
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