Air Côte d’Ivoire, the national flag carrier of the Republic of Côte d’Ivoire, has taken delivery of its first of two Airbus A330-900 aircraft.
The A330-900neo is the first widebody aircraft in Air Côte d’Ivoire’s fleet and is configured in a four-class cabin layout with four seats in First, 44 in Business, 21 in Premium Economy and 173 in Economy class.
Yes, the twist is that the airline has chosen to fit First Class on these two Airbus A330-900s.
Air Côte d’Ivoire operates to West and Central Africa with 22 destinations served all over the continent. The A330-900 fleet will play a key role in Air Côte d’Ivoire’s expansion plans to Europe, starting with the French Capital, Paris, then to destinations in the Middle East and North America.
The A330neo features the award-winning Airspace cabin, which offers passengers a unique experience, a high level of comfort, ambience, and design. This includes more individual space, enlarged overhead bins, a new lighting system and access to the latest in-flight entertainment and connectivity systems.
Air Côte d’Ivoire’s first A330neo delivery flight from Toulouse to Abidjan transported five tonnes of humanitarian goods, including materials and school supplies. This marked the airline’s third goodwill flight, coordinated with the Airbus Foundation and supported by Aviation Sans Frontières, who provided the donations. The goods were distributed to two local NGOs, LifeShine and la Bienfaisance, to directly support their initiatives within the health and education sectors in Abidjan.
Brave.
The Up Front had a first glimpse of what Air Côte d’Ivoire is offering
We’ll have a full write up of the Air Côte d’Ivoire A330neo’s four cabins — La First, business, premium and economy — but here is un petit sneak peek…
— The Up Front (@theupfront.media) September 3, 2025 at 7:58 PM
But adding a First Class Cabin on to an A330neo is… brave, considering we’ve seen a lot of airlines walk back their First Class offerings in recent years.
From the images provided by The Up Front, it seems the First Class Suite is a variant of their business class product (as we’ve seen a lot of airlines are using the first row to create Business-Plus or First Class products, with a larger suite) – so I’ll be interested to see hwo Air Côte d’Ivoire is going to differentiate itself and its product stack.
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