Jointly owned by three governments, East African Airways was the only non-UK Super VC10 operator. The type was well suited to its operating conditions, but the airline struggled to compete with larger carriers and eventually collapsed, as Barry Lloyd explains
East African Airways Corporation, less formally known as East African Airways (EAA), was formed on January 1, 1946 for the purpose of operating flights around East Africa and to Aden. In a similar system to that employed by Scandinavian Airlines System, shareholding was held between three countries: Kenya, Tanganyika (Tanzania from 1965) and Uganda. Services to the UK did not start until early 1957 using ex-BOAC Avro Argonauts. Two de Havilland Comet 4s, originally ordered by the airline in 1958, were put into service on the NairobiLondon service in 1960. The route would involve several stops, usually at Khartoum, Entebbe and Rome. A separate service was later operated to Bombay (Mumbai) via Aden, to serve the large expat Asian community in East Africa. Nairobi was chosen as the headquarters for the airline.
