If you’re flying to Ghana from North America, I highly recommend flying with Emirates Airlines.

I flew with them in March 2006 and had an excellent experience. The route is New York (JFK Airport) to Dubai to Accra, Ghana.

The ticket cost $1,201 USD including all taxes and fees.

Flight time from New York to Dubai was about 13 hours.

Flight time from Abu Dhabi to Accra was about 7 hours.

It’s a very long journey, since you’re actually backtracking — going first to the Middle East then to West Africa. But the price is the best I’ve seen in several years.

Emirates is one of the most luxurious airlines in the world.

Each seat has its own “Emirates’ In-flight Entertainment” (IFE) system, with dozens of movies, TV shows, music, games, etc. It’s all on-demand too, so you can start, stop and pause at your leisure. The seats are really big with lots of leg-room, and the food is good-restaurant quality.

Emirates just signed a deal with mobile communications company AeroMobile to allow passengers to use their personal mobile phones for calls and text messages. Apparently it’s the first deal of its kind in aviation history.

Starting in 2007 passengers will also be able to connect their iPods to a personal docking station — both for battery charging and for allowing the IFE system to play music, television shows, or movies stored on the iPod.

A couple of things to keep in mind when booking your ticket:

> I was able to order the ticket on their website, but I had to call them with my credit card. 

> After you pay for the flight, they tell you that you have to pick up the paper ticket in-person at their office.

In America their only office is in New York City. So Emirates was nice enough to FedEx the paper tickets to me overnight to Philadelphia free of charge.