Transport and Infrastructural Development minister Obert Mpofu has said most Air Zimbabwe aircraft were serviceable and could be made to begin plying regional routes.
BY VENERANDA LANGA
The minister said this during question and answer session in Senate on Thursday while responding to a question by Harare Metropolitan Senator James Makore (MDC-T) who wanted him to explain if there was a possibility of the airline reconnecting internationally again.
“Yes, Air Zimbabwe is growing in leaps and bounds following a difficult period a few years ago when it had almost grounded to a halt,” Mpofu said.
“We have managed despite serious financial and viability challenges to get it flying again, and most of our aircrafts are serviceable and can actually ply the regional routes, but because of the old equipment that we still have, we are unable to fly international routes such as London-Gatwick and Beijing-Shanghai.”
Mpofu said the two Boeing 767s that used to fly regional routes were now of age and were no longer allowed to land at airports because of the noise they produced, the heavy fuel consumption and other technical requirements by modern aviation.
“The good news, however, is that we have added onto our fleet, two A320s which are fairly new. You may have witnessed the other day the launching of the one that arrived. We are still waiting for the other one to arrive. These will do the extended regional routes, which are perhaps to Angola, Luanda, DRC, Kinshasa, Lubumbashi, Nairobi, Durban and Cape Town,” he said.
Mpofu said they were making tremendous progress in resuscitating Air Zimbabwe.
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“We have got many investors that want to partner us in co-sharing the routes that Zimbabwe used to fly. Zimbabwe is a hub of the region as it is centrally located. Every airline wants to stop-over or start from Zimbabwe to whatever destination in Africa. We have so far brought in private players like Fly Africa, which is quite active as well as Go Fast Jet which is also active. If you go to Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo Airport or Victoria Falls Airport, there is a lot of activity,” he said.
