ASKY Airlines

Is ASKY Airlines safe?

On the record, yes. ASKY has flown from its hub at Lomé, Togo, since January 2010 without a fatal accident or a written-off aircraft on its own flights. It holds an IOSA registrationIOSAThe IATA Operational Safety Audit, an international audit of an airline's safety management and operations. Every IATA member must pass it.More in the glossary as an IATA member, and about half of its 17 Boeings are new 737 MAX 8s. What keeps the score down is the setting: the oversight behind it is hard to see from outside, and its network runs into the Sahel, where two of its jets were damaged on the ground in an attack at Niamey in January 2026. We score it 77.

Who actually runs ASKY?

ASKY was created to fill the gap left in West and Central Africa by the collapse of Air Afrique, with Ethiopian Airlines as its technical partner from the start. Ethiopian owns about 40% and runs the airline under a management contract.

That link shapes almost everything that matters for safety. Ethiopian leases ASKY most of its aircraft, many still on the Ethiopian register with ET- registrations, and handles much of the maintenance, including heavier shop visits in Addis Ababa, according to Aviation Week. ASKY flies under its own KP flight numbers and its own call sign, so on our rules its record is its own, separate from Ethiopian Airlines.

The one written-off aircraft in ASKY's colours shows where the line falls. On 10 January 2015 a Boeing 737-400 freighter ran off the runway on landing at Accra in poor visibility, losing its right main gear and an engine; the three crew went to hospital. The Aviation Safety Network records that Ethiopian Airlines flew it for ASKY, so Ethiopian's crew and certificate operated it, and under our wet-lease rule it counts on Ethiopian's record, not here.

The fleet is getting younger

In August 2026 ASKY took its 17th aircraft, a 737 MAX 8, giving it eight 737 MAX jets and nine 737-800s, according to Aviation Week. Two more are due in January and February 2027. The MAX jets arrived from 2023, some leased from AerCap and the rest from Ethiopian; one of those damaged at Niamey was about three years old. The plan is to retire the 737-800s and go all-MAX, and to start long-haul flights to Paris from late 2027.

A single-type fleet helps training and maintenance. We score the fleet 80, a little below Ethiopian's 84, because the 737-800s are an older generation and their ages are not published.

Oversight: good audit, thin view

ASKY passes IATA's IOSAIOSAThe IATA Operational Safety Audit, an international audit of an airline's safety management and operations. Every IATA member must pass it.More in the glossary audit of its operations every two years. Beyond that the public picture is thin. Togo is not on the EU Air Safety ListEU Air Safety ListThe European Commission's list of airlines banned or restricted from flying in EU airspace because they do not meet international safety standards.More in the glossary, but it is also not on the FAA's safety assessment list, because no Togolese airline flies to the United States, and we could not see Togo's ICAO audit score. Togo's investigators publish little. Because most aircraft are registered in Ethiopia, oversight of their airworthiness can sit with Ethiopia unless the two states transfer it by agreement, which an ICAO country profile says Togo planned to do. We score oversight 70, the same as Tunisair and Air Algérie, which are also IOSA-registered under regulators with no FAA rating and few published reports. Air Peace (68) sits two points lower because Nigeria's investigators found it slow to report incidents.

Incidents and the Sahel

The one serious incident on record is recent. On 27 June 2025 flight KP71, a 737-800 leaving Kinshasa for Lomé, stopped its climb at about 12,000 feet with an engine fault and landed back at N'Djili 20 minutes later. Passengers waited until the next day for another aircraft. The aircraft stayed in Kinshasa for almost a month. In January 2026 DR Congo's investigators said they classed it as a serious incident and had sent the flight recorders to France's BEA. Few other events are public, which is more a sign of thin reporting in the region than of a spotless record.

The bigger external risk is the network. On the night of 28 to 29 January 2026 fighters from Islamic State's Sahel branch attacked Niamey airport and the neighbouring air base. A 737 MAX 8 and a 737-800 that ASKY had flown in from Ouagadougou were hit while parked overnight, as was an Air Côte d'Ivoire A319. Attacks like this do not count against the accident record, but they are why the operating environment scores 50.

How to fly ASKY more safely

• Check the Sahel news before you book. Niamey and Ouagadougou are served on the same rotation. If an airport there has been attacked or closed, expect cancellations and avoid tight connections.
• Plan for long waits after a technical return. After the Kinshasa engine event passengers waited a day with no information. Carry essentials in your hand luggage on the longer Central African routes.
• Know whose flight you are on. Ethiopian-numbered flights on the same routes are flown by Ethiopian, and its score applies to them, not ASKY's.

How we scored it

The accident record (90) is the strongest factor, with no crash of its own in more than 16 years, and the fleet (80) is getting newer. Oversight (70) and incidents (64) are held back by a thin public record, and the Sahel network (50) is the weakest factor.