Air transport has been contributing to the growth of Cameroon’s economy since1932. The first ever controllable flight which lasted for about 12 seconds in the air was carried out by the Wright brothers in the United States of America in 1903.

Due to technological advancement, a single aircraft nowadays is capable of transporting more than five hundred persons across so many continents generating a turnover worth billions of dollars. In Cameroon the concept of civil aviation started only in 1932 with a project to construct airport infrastructures in Douala, Garoua and Yaounde. At this time, air transport was limited to the transportation of a few tourists to Douala and Garoua. However in 1947, the first ever national airline company Air Cameroon was created and it operated between the big towns of Cameroon, to Chad, Gabon and Equatorial Guinea. A few years later, Cameroon Air Transport based in BOTA in the present South West region came into existe n ce while Compagnie Arianne Ardic and Avia Services were located in Douala. After Cameroon gained its independence in 1960, it joined other French speaking countries in Africa to sign the treaty of Yaounde on the 28th of march 1961 that gave birth to Air Afrique, a multinational airline company which did not only served regional and international ro u tes but also the domestic routes in Cameroon .

Cameroon withdrew from Air Afrique in 1971 and Cameroon Airlines was created by a Presidential degree. The newly created airline company had monopoly on regular flights on the domestic route for about ten years. Due to the growth in forest exploitation in Cameroon in the 1980’s, the demand for Non schedule flights services increased because timber companies needed a means to transport their personnel to and from the forest. In addition to this investment in agriculture (plantations) increased and so the need for aerial works while the high demand for oil lead to more exploration of petroleum products at the plat forms in the Gulf of Guinea by Total, Texaco and pere n co etc gave rise to the creation of the following companies: Unifly; Unité de Traitement Agricole par Voie Aérienne : ( UTAVA) ; Cameroon Helicopters :(CAMHEL) ; Central Air Transport :(CAT) ; Société de Transport et d’Equipement :(STE) ;Air Inter Cameroon :( AIC); The liberalization of air transport services by Law no. 93/008 of 16th July 1993 was seen as a vital step towards the development of air transport in Cameroon which brought other operators into the market including: Air Affaires Afrique, National Airways Cameroon, Unitair etc to offer regular servicers. Another law that changed aviation activities in Cameroon is that of 1998, relating to Civil Av i ation Regulations which also gave rise to the CCAA the organ in charge of Safety and security in Civil Aviation and the development of air transport in Cameroon.

During this same period, Cameroon was coming out of the economic recession, combine with the wind of liberalization in the form of multilateral agreements like the Yamoussoukro decision, gave more impetus to the air transport market within the continent. To benefit from this liberalization and under the guidance of the Cameroon Civil Aviation Authority, companies like: Region Air Cameroon, Cotair, Jetfly. Com , UTAC, Afrique Chart Air, Air leasing, Elysian airlines, Air Servi ce Cameroon, CHC Cameroon , were certified between 2000 and 2008 while Planet airlines, Aviatrade Business, Midwest wings and Camair-Co are still on the certification process. Most of the companies certified are no longer operational because the sustainability of an airline company depends on so many economic factors (high operations cost, maintenance, training of professionals, demand for air services, price of fuel etc) which are so unpredictable. Most national airline companies fail due to insufficient finances to cover the high cost of operations compared to other similar countries in the sub-region. Furthermore, most of these small airlines do lack aviation professionals to guide them accordingly.