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Rare promotional broadside map of the World, advertising for Air Afrique.

Air Afrique was a Pan-African airline that was mainly owned by many West African countries for most of its history. It was established as the official transnational carrier for francophone West and Central Africa, because many of these countries did not have the capability to create and maintain a national airline, with its headquarters in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. The carrier was a member of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) as well as the French Union's smaller IATA-like ATAF.

Air Afrique was originally conceived in February 1960 as a joint subsidiary of Air France and Union Aéromaritime de Transport (UAT) to take over the regional services these airlines had operated in Africa. The new company was registered in September 1960 as Air Afrique (Société de Transports Aériens en Afrique). During the first conference of Francophone countries that was held in Abidjan in October 1960, the Ivorian president Felix Houphouët Boigny recommended the constitution of a multinational airline for these countries.

The Eleven heads of state who attended the next conference, held at Brazzaville in December the same year, agreed to form the company. Gambia, Ghana and Mali decided to stay away from the project, as they had plans for setting up their own airlines with aid from the Soviets. The formation of the company took place during the third conference, held at Yaoundé in early 1961: Air Afrique (Société de Transports Aériens en Afrique) changed its name to Société pour le Développement du Transport Aérien en Afrique (SODETRAF); the eleven countries and SODETRAF would set up the new airline. The Treaty of Yaoundé, signed on 28 March 1961, founded Air Afrique as a joint venture between Air France and UAT, each of which had a 17% holding, while the eleven newly independent former French colonies in West Africa, namely Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Côte d'Ivoire, Gabon, Mauritania, Niger, the Republic of the Congo and Senegal, contributed with the remaining 66% of the capital, estimated in 500 millions of CFA francs.

The company started operations in August 1961 serving internal routes with 12 leased DC-4s from Air France and UAT. On 15 October 1961, an Air France Lockheed Constellation that flew the Paris-Port Etienne-Dakar-Abidjan-Cotonou-Douala route on behalf of the company inaugurated the long-haul operations. Pressurised Douglas DC-6 aircraft were added to the fleet in the early 1960s, also leased from UAT. In January 1962, the carrier deployed Boeing 707s, leased from Air France, on the Paris-Dakar-Abidjan and the Paris-Douala-Brazzaville runs; these were the first jet aircraft introduced on the carrier's intercontinental routes. Two DC-8s were the first jets ordered by the airline in December the same year. Also in 1962, the carrier became a member of the International Air Transport Association.