Congo par Sabena, 1954

A domestic route map of sixty years ago looks much more impressive than the meagre network of Korongo today. Sabena offered services to no less than thirty airports in the vast Belgian colony, with what looks to be busy stations not only at the capital Leopoldville, and the principal regional administrative outposts at Elizabethville and Stanleyville, but throughout the interior of the enormous territory.

There were more than half a dozen routes via various way stations to the metropole in Brussels, including Tripoli, Casablanca, and Rome; all the routes from the capital connected at Kano, which must have been quite an operation in its own right.

In addition, regional African routes spanned the territorial border in all directions: from Leopoldville to Portuguese Luanda and Johannesburg, which also had a link to Elizabethville; from Albertville to Dar Es Salaam, from Libenge to Bangui, in French Equatorial Africa. Not especially the route to Entebbe and Nairobi, especially how Kigali lies within the realm of Belgian Central Africa at this time.

Korongo Airlines Route Map, 2013-14

Still today, Belgian's primary commercial airline is greatly involved in the aviation market of the Congo. Here is a recent route map of Korongo Airlines, the Congolese subsidiary of Brussels Airlines, which has been featured previously here. 

The airline has slowly been expanding from southeastern Katanga province to the capital Kinshasa, where the dotted line SN flights reach Brussels almost daily. A connection to Johannesburg from Lubumbashi is especially convenient for mining executives; more recent routes now link Mbuji-Mayi and the secondary Katangan city of Kolwezi, one of the most active center for Cobalt mining in the world.

Korongo Airlines Network, 2012

A new chapter in the saga of Congolese Aviation is the recent arrival of Korongo Airlines. Backed by Belgians (as has so frequently been the case in the history of Congo's airlines), Korongo has been constituted by Brussels Airlines with other partners. According to the map, the airline seems to only offer a flight between Kinshasa and Lubumbashi, although the route map, taken from the airline's website, also includes diamond hub Mbuji-Mayi, secondary Katangan capital of Kolwezi. Beyond the vast extent of the Congo itself, prestigious plans are apparently in place for flights to Johannesburg (already underway according to the Wikipedia article) and Brussels-- the dashed line from Kinshasa suggests that for the time being passengers may connect with SN service to Zaventem.