Maintenance on grounded Airzim plane complete

now waiting for the Civil Aviation Authority of Zimbabwe to certify it, acting Air Zimbabwe chief executive officer, Mr Moses Mapanda has said.
Air Zim grounded three of its Boeing 737 series in April after CAAZ indicated that the planes had passed their design service objective of 20 years and were increasingly becoming expensive to run.
However, the manufacturer (Boeing) gave Air Zim the green light to continue flying its 737-200 planes, saying they were fit to fly.
Mr Mapanda last week told The Herald that the national airline was using the MA60 to ply the domestic routes while regional, continental and international routes had not been affected. He said Airzim was working flat out to solve the problems bedevilling the national airline.
“Work on one of the planes (737) is now done and what is left is for CAAZ to look at it. After that we will then start work on others. We want to make sure work is done to the satisfaction of CAAZ.
“However, in the meantime we are still flying though we have limited service because we are short of equipment after the grounding. We are still flying to London twice a week, Beijing and Kuala Lumpar is once a week and we are still servicing the Jo’burg (Johannesburg) route.
“The shareholder (Government), board and management are working flat out to solve the challenges at Air Zim,” Mr Mapanda said.
He said the national airline was still pursuing retrenchment as a means of reducing costs but lack of money was delaying the process.
“We still need to downsize to an appropriate level of 409 from about 1300 employees for us to operate effectively but we cannot retrench without funding. We need funding to pay those who would have been retrenched,” he said.
Mr Mapanda also dismissed claims that Air Zim was subsidising some clients.
He, however, said Airzim workers, and those on retirement were given free flights, which are limited, as part of their perks.
“We are not that generous to the extent of letting people fly for free. Most of our passengers are commercial people and they pay.
“For our staff, they are given travel perks, which I cannot disclose but they are limited according to length of service,” Mr Mapanda said.