The Sahel G5 regional bloc, whose members include Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Chad, has resolved to establish a new regional airline named Sahel Airlines (Niamey).

In true bureaucratic fashion, each member state will contribute two aviation experts to a steering committee charged with developing a feasibility plan for the start-up. Mohamed Mahmoud Bouassriya, the director general of Mauritania's civil aviation authority, will oversee said committee which is expected to be in place by June.

Thereafter, a suitable business plan, along with a viable structure for the carrier, is to be drafted by December of this year in time for an early 2017 launch.

Once operational, Sahel Airlines will focus on improving connectivity between each member state akin to what the now defunct pan-African carrier Air Afrique (Abidjan) did back in the 1980s/90s.

Of the Sahel G5's constituent members, only Burkina Faso, Mauritania, and Niger have relatively large-scale commercial operators plying regular domestic and regional flights in the form of Air Burkina (2J, Ouagadougou), Mauritania Airlines International (Nouakchott), and Niger Airlines (6N, Niamey).