adminAir Zimbabwe, the country’s national carrier, has not been equal to the task in terms of facilitating business through an efficient transport system. We welcome reports carried elsewhere in this edition that the national carrier is relaunching flights between Bulawayo, Harare and Victoria Falls. It is quite unforgivable for an airline to fail to run flights between the capital and the second largest city in the country.
Air Zimbabwe service has been deteriorating over the years as its capacity was constricted by inadequate capitalisation and bad business decisions. The airline has been struggling to take to the skies and several options have been explored to turn it around. What is clear, however, is that the company needs to be turned around since privatising it in its present state would be a non-starter.
It is against this background that we welcome the resumption of local flights and hope that this will spread to international flights so that we restore national pride in Air Zimbabwe. We are aware that due to huge debts, Air Zimbabwe cannot venture into the region and beyond after creditors threatened to attach its aircraft. However, the process of rebuilding Air Zimbabwe has to start somewhere and we believe resuming domestic flights would help the airline regain the market’s confidence. Once it wins the trust of the local market, it would then build on that momentum as it prepares for the regional market, and hopefully plans to retire the $100 million debt would have been put in place so that resumption of regional flights is not scuttled.
The Zimbabwe International Trade Fair has come and gone and foreign exhibitors did not experience the hospitality of our national airline apart from the hastily arranged three flights per week between Harare and Bulawayo during the Trade Fair. The three flights per week were scheduled to start yesterday and the airline has made assurances that it would provide improved service in this “journey to recovery”.
The Government and Air Zimbabwe authorities should resolve the airline’s problems as a matter of urgency or else the airline would lose its routes to private operators. Turning around loss making airlines has been done on the continent through progressive partnerships and it is our hope that such alliances are being pursued so that we have a longer term plan for the airline, not stop-gap measures around major events. The airline has just one year to shape up in readiness for the United Nations World Tourism Organisation meeting in Victoria Falls and it should surely not fail us as our flag bearer.
Online Reporter