Impossible n’est pas Camerounais

Impossible n’est pas Camerounais
(November 1st 1971)

The white Boeing 737-200 plane with red stripes and green markings taxied on the runway and took off, ascending obliquely into the clouds. Its attention-seeking sound made the children of Douala rush out of their homes to catch a glimpse. Adults also appeared on the streets of Douala, eyes glued to the skies, pointing with quivering fingers. Airport personnel, government officials, guests and journalists at the Aeroport International de Douala watched the plane anxiously. Everybody basked in the marvel of Cameroon Airlines’ maiden flight. The plane roared over their heads, as it made its way to Yaoundé for the first time.

“The whole of Cameroon flew into the sky that day,” the grey-haired Swissport supervisor of the Douala International Airport, Jareth Michel Aimé fondly remembers the incident from a lost African magazine he had read, as he stood at the Documents Check control point, (Docs check two) in front of Gate A-22, after verifying all the passenger visas and travel documents on a South African Airways flight.

Happy chants of “Cameroun, obosso! Cameroun, obosso!” filled the air. Children sang songs reserved for airplane sightings. Adults waved at it, prayed for a safe landing. Many wished they had boarded the plane. In different Cameroonian towns, people listened to radio commentary from journalists stationed at the Douala and Yaoundé airports. The plane had disappeared from view in Douala.

The white French captain welcomed the sixty passengers on board Cameroon Airlines. He announced his co-pilot, a certain François Angounou, Cameroon’s first co-pilot and captain in the making. Cameroonians on board were full of national pride. In their minds, the countdown to when co-captain Angounou would hold the reins of that Camair aircraft as main captain had begun. When the plane reached cruising altitude, six ladies dressed in colourful Camair flight attendant uniforms served sandwich, soft drinks and beer. The passengers ate and drank, listening to the soothing Makossa tunes of Manu Dibango and Francis Bebey.

Moments later, the captain announced descent into Yaoundé. The plane dipped slowly, executing its balancing trajectories towards the Aeroport de Yaoundé. As it landed, it was greeted by the deafening applause of a small crowd. Bare chested dancers gyrated to traditional music played with drums. Journalists reported the historic moment. They said President Ahmadou Ahidjo had beamed with pride. The strength of his political will translated to the success of the first Camair flight.

The passengers disembarked from the plane to meet their associates in the arrival hall. The flight crew emerged last and made their way past the presidential guards towards the Head of State. Ahidjo was adorned in immaculate white Agbada raiment, his trademark. He stood next to the ramp, waiting for the crew with key members of his government. The crowd cheered the entire flight staff, especially François Angounou who stole the limelight from the French captain. He was the star of the day. Ahidjo shook hands with all of them. His greeting of co-pilot Angounou was special. Jareth recalls that Ahidjo complimented him in a rare tone of admiration,

“Mon commandant!”

The crowd cheered. The smiling Angounou stood awkwardly in front of Ahidjo, perhaps uncertain how to react to such praise from an autocratic president. Angounou completed his training later, under the patronage of Ahidjo and achieved the flight time required for full captainship. He regularly flew one of the two Boeing 737-200 planes Camair started operations with. Ahidjo made sure he wasn’t poached by any other airline. Angounou naturally became Cameroon’s first aviation hero, paving the way for many others to follow. He reminisced about his professional experience with Camair many years later, during an interview broadcast on national television. Ahidjo would also be the hero (not the victor) in his aviation war against Air Afrique, or precisely, against President Felix Houphouet Boigny of Cote d’Ivoire. That aviation war birthed Camair.

The Air Afrique website states that the airline was created at a conference held in Yaoundé in 1961. The idea had been discussed at two past conferences in Abidjan and Brazzaville. It was established as the official Pan-African carrier for eleven West and Central Francophone African countries—Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Ivory Coast, Gabon, Mauritania, Niger, the Republic of Congo and Senegal—since they could neither launch nor maintain national carriers individually.

Air Afrique functioned smoothly throughout the Sixties, building a reputation as the most reputable carrier in West and Central Africa. However, ego problems crept in between the two big members in the late sixties. Air Afrique’s capital had been in Abidjan. Ahidjo wanted it to be in Douala. Douala was the city with the highest traffic among the points served by the carrier in Africa at the time; Ahidjo believed that the capital should be located there. Plus, he was dissatisfied with the lack of Cameroonians in top managerial positions.

The two presidents ruffled their feathers but never came to an agreement. Ahidjo founded Cameroon Airlines on July 26th 1971. He pulled Cameroon out of the consortium in September 1971—he had been the first president in the conglomerate to do so. On November 1st, he launched Cameroon Airlines’ first flight from Douala to Yaoundé. Boigny didn’t have plans of pulling his country out of Air Afrique or starting a national airline. He had conceived the idea of Air Afrique at the first conference in Abidjan. So he stuck with them. Ahidjo also stuck with his Camair plan. The doomsayers at Air Afrique predicted Camair’s demise. They said Ahidjo would never pull it off. But Ahidjo did on November 1st 1971. He would also show for the rest of that decade that impossible n’est pas Camerounais.

Sky is the Limit (1971-1981)

Ahidjo knew that for Camair to dominate the African sky like Air Afrique, he had to act fast and spend big. With Angounou on board, he proceeded to nurturing other fine Cameroonian pilots and bought good, reliable airplanes which they flew. The Camair website highlights its first fleet—two Boeing 737-200 planes and two Douglas DC-4 aircrafts—for short haul flights, as well as one Boeing 707-300 plane for long haul flights to Europe.

Construction work on the new Aeroport International de Douala started in the early seventies. Ahidjo inaugurated it on June 27th 1977, together with his Minister of Transport, Dr John Nkengong Monie. The new airport looked like it was going to take off itself. It was among the top five airports in sub-Saharan Africa in 1977. Due to its strategic position in the middle of the gulf of Guinea, it served as the main hub of Camair. Ahidjo still wanted it to be the hub of the Central and West African states, since the old one was the dominant airport in the Air Afrique days. The Garoua International Airport in northern Cameroon was built next. It had the infrastructural capacity of serving as the hub for all the countries close to northern Africa.

Camair was the only airline landing at fourteen Cameroonian domestic airports in almost every province of the country. The airline flew to African cities such as Cotonou, Bangui, N’djamena, Brazzaville, Libreville, Malabo, Abidjan, Lagos and Dakar. It also spread tentacles globally to Paris, Marseille, Rome and Geneva. Camair recruited pilots, engineers, technicians, flight attendants and ground service staff based on merit. The Cameroonian engineers and technicians did most of their repair work at the old Douala Airport, which is near the new one.

The flight attendants radiated grace and elegance, serving with an ever present smile. They were the embodiment of the airline’s slogan, “To serve you better.” Many Camair passengers still have smitten memories of the beautiful flight attendant named Agathe Irene Ngniman. She could soothe a raging passenger during a flight with her kindness, charm and warmth. Also, Makossa artist, Ekambi Brillant plucked inspiration from the success of the airline, with a song aptly titled, “Cameroon Airlines.”

Camair was a managerial success and one of the few African airlines that dominated the African sky throughout the Seventies. The company flourished with its global destinations too, especially at Charles de Gaulle in France, its busiest destination which yielded the most profits. It was a source of national pride among Cameroonian migrants there. They could eat Cameroonian food on board Camair. They could drink Cameroonian beer on board Camair. And they could listen to the latest Makossa hits. They could also catch up with what was going on in Cameroon in French, English, Pidgin English, Duala, Ewondo, Nweh, Hausa, Baganté, or Bafut conversations. The flights were punctual. The frequencies were consistent. Flight cancellations were rare. Passengers received their luggage at arrival. And everybody looked forward to their next flight. Camair finally caught up with Air Afrique. The sky was the limit for the two airlines from Francophone sub-Saharan Africa.

Cameroon is famous for her achievements in football. Camair also played a key role in the success of Cameroonian football clubs and her national team, the Indomitable Lions. The Eighties marked the first golden age of Cameroonian football and a blossoming relationship with Camair. Douala Airport trouper, Isaac Kotte still has vivid memories of the 1981 rivalry between A.S Bilima of Zaire and Canon de Yaoundé. Both teams had qualified for the two legged final of the African Champions league. The first leg was played at the Ahmadou Ahidjo stadium in Yaoundé. A.S Bilima defeated Canon 1-0. Interestingly, Canon whitewashed A.S Bilima 3-0 at the second leg in Zaire. They absolutely stunned the Bilima fans and lifted the coveted trophy for the first time. It was the first display of Cameroonian football hemle.

The Bilima supporters were furious. They accused Canon of football juju, swearing in Lingala, “Bana ba Cameroun ba zalaki sorciers!” Sensing danger, journalist Abel Mbengue announced on radio, during his post-match report that if President Ahidjo was listening, he should try to get the Canon team out of Zaire as soon as possible. Ahidjo chartered a Camair plane to Kinshasa, which flew the victorious team back home and the whole of Yaoundé celebrated.

Combi: The eleventh province (1981)

The biggest plane Camair operated in the eighties was the Boeing 747-200, which the aircraft manufacturer, Boeing, nicknamed combi–combined cargo approach. The popularity of the combi grew during the sixties. The versatile plane could be used either as an airliner, to carry passengers, or as freighter, to carry cargo. Coincidentally, combi means “comrade” in Cameroonian Pidgin English. The plane’s name also depicted its friendly relationship with the Cameroonian people. Retired state journalist, John Ndahne had been on holiday in Paris with his children, when he learnt about combi’s purchase, by president Ahidjo. He had quickly secured flight tickets for his three children, who had to fly back home.

One of his sons, Nsima Ndahne, a Swissport employee himself, vividly remembers his flight experience on one of the first Paris-Douala combi trips, captained by Angounou, as he stood on the ramp writing down the pushback and take off times of an Asky Airlines plane. The ambience on board combi had been infectious. He had feasted on a meal of boiled potatoes and pepper soup. The Makossa melodies of Charles Lembe, Toto Guillaume, Nkoti François and Pierre de Moussy filtered into the aisle. The sultry voice of Anne Marie Nzie and the showy bass guitar sounds of Les Tetes Brulées boomed too. However, Ekambi Brillant’s hit song, “Cameroon Airlines” eclipsed them all.

As the chatty passengers downed Cameroonian beer, the plane made its entry into the gulf of Guinea, unveiling scenic views of the creeks and green marshlands of the Douala coast. Another classic song began thumping the plane. The shakers had sounded first. But Manu Dibango had bullied its sound away quickly, with the most vocal and most powerful of the woodwinds, deftly soloing intricate sax notes on the jazzy beat. The melody of the raucous notes alternated swiftly. Like Muhammed Ali floating on his toes before a shuffle, giving the track a very groovy tune. Manu knew how to sing with his saxophone. He finally bellowed on the song in his hoarse voice,

Hoo-haa!…Makossa brutalement civilisé.

The female back-up singers had already taken over with angelic singing in the Duala language, until they got to the song’s hook,

Bienvenue, welcome to Cameroon, ouh, ouh, ouh.

Bienvenue, welcome to Cameroon, ouh, ouh, ouh.

Nsima Ndahne had developed goose bumps. The tipsy passengers had “ooohed” and “whoooed”, marvelling at the creative musical touch to the landing concept. Combi had felt so homely even before passengers reached home. That is why Cameroonians bestowed on it an apt alias –the eleventh province. If the country had ten provinces, then combi was the eleventh. Other Cameroonians simply nicknamed combi, Mount Cameroon –the tallest mountain in West and Central Africa.

La vache à lait (1990-2000)

Douala Airport old-timer, Isaac Kotte’s recalls that things started to fall apart at Cameroon Airlines when Ahidjo resigned from power in 1982. The new government wasn’t as visionary with Camair as the old government had been. They had not been belligerents in the aviation war against Air Afrique. The desire to maintain the company on cloud nine just wasn’t there. Eight years after Ahidjo’s resignation and death, Camair became la vache a lait—a cow which everybody wanted to obtain free milk from. Government officials travelled constantly on the airline on unofficial trips, with their entire families. Sometimes they even did so with their mistresses, without paying for tickets. Other passengers with Camair connections paid little to travel. Powerful companies obtained flight tickets on credit and flew their workers abroad. Camair only billed them. In most cases, the debts were paid months later or paid in half. There was a lot of laxity and little corporate governance at the airline. A dysfunctional system of checks and balances was now in place, unlike the days of Ahidjo.

Nepotism and corruption without impunity became rampant at Camair—vices which merely seeped in from a corrupt regime. Karaa—a word that signifies airport corruption in Cameroon—became part of the everyday parlance within the Douala and Nsimalen Airports. The airline was compelled to scale down operations on many destinations. The devaluation of the Franc CFA, (Cameroon’s currency) and a stifling economic recession, (the country’s worst since independence) further complicated matters at Camair. There was no capital which the government could inject into the airline as an economic stimulus measure. There was no austerity measure. The airline quickly became suicidal. Like a healthy man who was putting a rope around his neck to hang himself.

The healthy cow wasn’t fed enough hay to replenish its fast depleting milk reserves. It became weak and even ill. Cameroonians cried foul and lost faith in the airline. But the cow continued to be milked excessively. Incompetent recruitments were being done based on connections, not merit anymore. Technicians and engineers were mostly employed from abroad. Camair totally regressed from what Ahidjo had envisaged; unbearable flight delays, frequent flight cancellations, stranded passengers at airports abroad, missing luggage, growing debts, overstaffing, incompetency, unpaid workers’ salaries, fishy karaa organised by even flight crew members to obtain fast cash and keep up with their lavished life styles. On the footballing side, the Indomitable Lions had qualified for the 1994 World Cup once again. But there was no money to send the team off to USA, as a result of the aforementioned crises. Senior researcher, Dominique Malaquais flashes back to those moments in an article published on Chimurenga magazine. In a shocking twist of events, it was a public freewill donation by Cameroonians and the country’s most notorious feyman, Donatien Koagné, famed for being Cameroon’s Robin Hood that salvaged the Indomitable Lions. Donatien appeared on state television and announced his donation of ten million Francs CFA to the team. The Indomitable Lions flew to USA where they flopped at that World Cup, even losing 6-1 to Russia. Throughout the nineties, they remained a shadow of themselves, plagued by all sorts of problems, just like their national airline and just like their country.

Founding editor of Chimurenga magazine, Ntone Edjabe recounted his experience travelling with the Indomitable Lions during those difficult times, in a brilliant article published by the Financial Times. He narrated a story about his delayed Camair flight to South Africa. The Indomitable Lions walked on board, headed for the 1996 Africa Cup of Nations. François Oman-Biyik, scorer of the opening goal of the 1990 World Cup against Argentina and captain of the national team, didn’t have a seat. One player even perched on a flight attendant’s seat. The plane made an impromptu stop in Yaoundé, so the players could collect advanced payment of their match fees. After refuelling stops in Kinshasa and Harare, the plane arrived in Johannesburg eight hours late. The Indomitable Lions moved directly to the stadium, where South Africa’s Bafana Bafana was waiting. And Cameroon was walloped 3-0. Gone were the days when special Camair planes were chartered to fly home victorious football clubs and the indomitable national team from World Cups. They now had to gate crash overloaded and delayed commercial Camair flights.

Sortie de piste (2000-2008)

The Camair website reveals that two Camair planes were involved in minor accidents in the late eighties, leading to one or two casualties. However, it was on December 3rd 1995 that the angel of death fully visited the airline. The beleaguered company experienced its worst accident in history. Flight 3701 which was operated by a Boeing 737-200 plane experienced a problem with its landing gear and crashed near Douala, killing 71 out of the 76 passengers on board. Camair’s already battered reputation was completely ruined. In November 2000, flight 70, operated by good, old combi flew from Douala to Paris. As it attempted landing, it veered off the runway at the Charles de Gaulle Airport, causing the front landing gear to be torn off and the legendary plane being damaged beyond repair. All the passengers on board were evacuated alive, including the minister delegate at the ministry of Finance, Roger Tchoungui, and Cameroonian music star, Beko Sadey. It was an accident which the press named sortie de piste. Though there weren’t any casualties in that mishap, it was the physical sign that Camair the sick cow had gone into a coma. The airline made its sortie out of the African aviation market for good.

Clients fled to other airlines with fast growing reputations. Not Air Afrique though. The pan-African airline was also being plagued by similar managerial problems. Air Afrique went defunct in 2002 but Camair remained in its coma, occasionally operating flights until 2008. Emerging players had however come into the game, filling the void Camair and Air Afrique created. Kenya Airways (which was launched six years after Camair in 1977), was now the big boy of the African sky. Their slogan, “The Pride of Africa,” was fitting. They paraded their white planes with red and green stripes and their K-tails like Kangaroos; stepping, taxiing, hopping and taking giant leaps into space in Neil Armstrong boastfulness.

On 16th September 2005, the French Civil Aviation Authority banned Camair from operating its prestigious Paris route. It was due to safety concerns that had arisen following aircraft check-ups that revealed failures to meet international norms. That was the final straw that broke the cow’s back. A desperate effort to save Cameroon Airlines from bankruptcy through an agreement with SN Airholding failed. Instead, the launch of Cameroon Airlines Corporation, Camair-Co, as the new national airline was announced in 2006, following a presidential decree by Paul Biya. Camair finally ceased all its operations and self-destructed in March 2008.

The Phoenix (2011-2017)

Camair-Co launched flight operations in 2011. The inaugural flight from Douala to Yaoundé and then to Paris, took place on March 28th. The airline started with a fleet of three planes, six domestic routes and nine international destinations. Ethiopian Airlines’ engineers and technicians were contracted to do Camair-Co’s maintenance work. The airline has been making losses since its creation, according to many local newspapers and Wikipedia, prompting government intervention. The state has also been changing its General Directors almost annually, to ameliorate the ever growing problems afflicting the young airline. There have been five of them on the hot seat after only six years. The old phoenix is slowly rising from the ashes.

A former Camair employee, Eyango Samuel, who now works for Swissport as a profiler, stood at his Documents Check post in the check-in hall (Docs check one), after rounding off work on an Ethiopian Airlines flight. Camair-co’s check-in was in full swing. A conversation with a few of his colleagues about what transpires at Camair-co sprang up, as they all dismantled the Ethiopian Airlines counter poles. And Eyango revealed some disconcerting information. He said the inner core of the new airline still comprises of the same autochthon who were at the helm at Camair. They work for their own interests, not the betterment of the airline. They prey on younger, more ambitious and more competent colleagues.

Private media in Cameroon reported that an attempt was made to burn some of the Camair-Co offices in Yaoundé in 2015, by many disgruntled passengers. They all complained of the same poor services that hampered Camair in the nineties. Camair-Co ceased operations on its Paris route not long after launch –its only European destination, due to a “restructuring policy.” However, Rwandair which started operations under that name in 2009 has rapidly increased its fleet to twelve planes. Camair-Co’s fleet still consists of five planes. Rwandair now flies to twenty two cities, including intercontinental flights to Dubai, Mumbai, London and Brussels. In 2014, it was TAAG Angola, a small unknown Angolan airline that flew the Indomitable Lions to the World Cup in Brazil. Not Camair-Co. They lost all their three games in the first round and were bundled out of the competition early. Even though Camair-Co flew them back to Yaoundé from Libreville as 2017 African champions for the fifth time, the suicide of Camair and its troubled phoenix rising from the ashes, still hurts many Cameroonians, especially those of the Seventies generation who basked in its glorious sunshine.