Air Côte d’Ivoire

In Europe, Air Côte d’Ivoire is a real rarity – and that is exactly why it makes an exciting entry for any logbook. The national airline of Ivory Coast is young, its fleet small and manageable, and with the A330-900neo it has only flown long-haul since 2025. This page shows you who is behind the code HF, which types you can expect and where you have a chance of a sighting.

Air Côte d’Ivoire at a glance

Air Côte d’Ivoire is the national airline of Ivory Coast, based at its hub in Abidjan. Its home airport is Félix-Houphouët-Boigny International Airport (ABJ) in the Port-Bouët district, right on the lagoon in the south of the economic metropolis.

The airline was founded in 2012. It filled a gap: the former state airline Air Ivoire had ceased operations in 2011, and the country was left without an airline of its own. For the restart, the Ivorian state brought an experienced partner on board – Air France-KLM took a minority stake and supported the build-up technically and strategically. On November 12, 2012 the first scheduled flight took off, from Abidjan to Dakar in Senegal. The first aircraft was a used Airbus A319 that had previously flown for Air France.

Since then the airline has grown step by step: first with more A319s and A320s, then with turboprops for domestic routes, later with the A320neo. In 2025 the A330-900neo arrived as the first widebody jet – and with it the leap to long-haul to Europe.

There is no alliance. But Air Côte d’Ivoire works with partners, including via codeshare with Ethiopian Airlines and via an interline agreement with Air France.

Codes and callsign

• IATA code HF: appears in the flight number, so on departure boards, tickets and in timetables.
• ICAO code VRE: used by air traffic control; on flight trackers you often see VRE plus the flight number.
• Callsign COTE D’IVOIRE: this is how the crew identifies itself on the radio.
• Registration TU-: all of the airline’s aircraft are registered in Ivory Coast.

The codes don’t sound like the airline’s name – HF and VRE have no recognizable connection to “Côte d’Ivoire”. For searching on the tracker, it is therefore worth memorizing both codes once. How registration prefixes are built in general is explained in the guide Understanding aircraft registrations.

The fleet: Airbus plus turboprop

Air Côte d’Ivoire’s fleet is deliberately lean. According to the airline’s fleet overview, it comprises fourteen aircraft in four type families in 2026:

Type	Count	Use	Spotter note
Airbus A330-900neo	2	Long-haul, including Paris	The airline’s first widebody jet, 242 seats in four classes
Airbus A320 / A320neo	3	Regional and medium haul	Mix of ceo and neo – look closely at the engines
Airbus A319	5	Regional and domestic routes	Backbone of the fleet since the 2012 launch
De Havilland Canada Dash 8-400	4	Domestic flights and short regional routes	High-wing turboprop with a high T-tail
Embraer E175	4 on order	Regional service	Deliveries planned from 2027

A330-900neo – the long-haul newcomer

In October 2022, Air Côte d’Ivoire ordered two A330neos from Airbus in Toulouse. The airline took delivery of the first aircraft on September 4, 2025 in Toulouse and ferried it directly to Abidjan; the second followed by the end of 2025. According to Airbus, Air Côte d’Ivoire’s A330-900neo has 242 seats in four classes: 4 in First, 44 in Business, 21 in Premium Economy and 173 in Economy. Four classes on an A330 are unusual – many airlines get by with two or three here.

For the airline, the A330neo is a milestone. It is its first widebody jet and enables nonstop flights to Europe. Airbus named Paris as the first destination; further routes to the Middle East and North America are among the expansion goals according to Airbus.

A319 and A320 – the backbone

On short and medium haul, Air Côte d’Ivoire relies on the A320 family. The A319 is the most common type with five examples, joined by first-generation A320s and the A320neo. The airline received its first A320neo in February 2021.

Dash 8-400 and its successor, the E175

For domestic flights to smaller places such as Bouaké, Korhogo, Man, Odienné or San-Pédro, the airline uses the Dash 8-400, a high-wing turboprop from De Havilland Canada. The first examples joined the fleet from 2014. At the end of 2025, Air Côte d’Ivoire ordered four Embraer E175s with options for more. Deliveries are planned to begin in 2027; the jets are intended for domestic and regional routes. How to tell the E175 from its siblings is shown in the guide Telling Embraer E-Jets apart.

How to tell the types apart

Because the fleet is so small, it pays to identify every type reliably. The biggest hurdle: the A320 and A320neo, as well as the A319 and A320, look similar at first glance.

The Dash 8-400, by contrast, is hard to confuse – at least not with the jets. The high-wing aircraft with two propellers and the high T-tail is clearly different. It only gets harder compared with the ATR 72, which is also a high-wing aircraft. The Dash 8-400 has a longer, slimmer fuselage and a clearly taller landing gear that retracts into the engine nacelles. More in the guide Telling turboprops apart. How to tell ceo and neo apart is shown in A320neo or ceo?.

How to recognize Air Côte d’Ivoire

You recognize the airline most reliably by three things: the “Air Côte d’Ivoire” titles on the fuselage, the registration with TU- at the rear and the ICAO code VRE on the tracker. Because Ivory Coast uses the prefix TU-, you can unambiguously assign every aircraft to the country from the registration alone.

The type mix is also helpful. If an A330-900neo with a TU- registration stands at the gate in Paris, the identification is practically certain. There you could most easily mix it up with Air Sénégal’s A330neo – the registration (6V- instead of TU-) settles that immediately. In West Africa itself, by contrast, the airline’s A319s and A320s share the stage with aircraft of other companies in the region, such as Air Sénégal or ASKY Airlines.

The route network

Air Côte d’Ivoire’s network is oriented toward West and Central Africa. From Abidjan, the airline flies to Accra, Dakar, Conakry, Bamako, Bissau, Ouagadougou, Cotonou, Lomé, Lagos, Abuja, Niamey, Monrovia, Douala, Yaoundé, Libreville, Brazzaville, Pointe-Noire and Kinshasa, among others. Domestically it connects Abidjan with Bouaké, Korhogo, Man, Odienné and San-Pédro.

Long-haul is new. Since fall 2025 the airline has flown the A330-900neo nonstop from Abidjan to Paris Charles de Gaulle. New York (JFK) also appears in the booking system. Whether such connections are operated with its own aircraft or via partners changes – so check the current schedule before spotting (as of October 2026).

Spotting Air Côte d’Ivoire in Paris

For spotters from Germany, Paris is the most realistic place for a sighting. Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport is a destination with an enormous variety of African airlines anyway – besides Air Côte d’Ivoire, Royal Air Maroc, Air Sénégal and Ethiopian Airlines land here, among others. How to find your way around the huge grounds and which spots are worthwhile is explained in the guide to Paris Charles de Gaulle.

Because Air Côte d’Ivoire has only two A330neos and Paris is its only destination in Europe, planning is everything. With an alert for airlines and registrations you won’t miss the approach. Look at the schedule, check the day before which runway direction is expected, and allow for delays on long-haul. A sighting of this airline clearly counts among the rarer ones in Europe – how to classify such finds is shown in the article How rare is my sighting?.

Common mix-ups

• Mixing up Air Côte d’Ivoire and Air Ivoire – Air Ivoire is the historical predecessor and ceased operations in 2011.
• Adding an A220 to the fleet – Embraer E175s are on order, not an A220.
• Logging an A319 as an A320 – count the overwing exits.
• Mixing up the A320neo and A320ceo – the neo has clearly larger engines.
• Mixing up the Dash 8-400 and ATR 72 – taller landing gear and a slimmer fuselage point to the Dash 8.
• Taking HF for a country code – IATA codes are purely airline identifiers.

Conclusion

Air Côte d’Ivoire is a young, compact airline with a clear profile: A319s and A320s for the region, the Dash 8-400 for domestic routes and, since 2025, two A330-900neos for long-haul to Paris. If you want a sighting in Europe, it’s best to plan a day at Paris Charles de Gaulle – and note the VRE code alongside type and registration.