Saturday, September 17, 2011

Troubled Air Zimbabwe grounded by absence of passengers

Air Zimbabwe's bid to resume flight operations suffered a false start on Friday when the airline cancelled scheduled domestic flights.

The ailing airline, whose planes have been grounded for close to two months due to a strike by pilots, had on Thursday announced that it would resume its domestic flights to Bulawayo and the resort town of Victoria Falls on Friday morning.

Regional flights from Harare to destinations such as Johannesburg were scheduled to commence tomorrow.

But the airline called off the flights as there were no passengers.

"No one showed up. People didn't know (about flight resumption)," said an employee at the airline's reservation desk.

The poor customer response forced Air Zimbabwe to reschedule its flights to today and tomorrow.

Regional flights to Lusaka and Lubumbashi will start on Friday while international flights to Kuala Lumpur, Beijing and London will resume on Friday and next Sunday.

However, regional flights from Bulawayo to Johannesburg remain suspended.

The airline's acting chief executive officer, Innocent Mavhunga, whose tenure of office has been marred by wildcat strikes, said the airline "will restore services to original levels gradually".

Pilots have been on a work boycott since July, protesting against the airline's failure to pay salaries on time and the non-payment of other outstanding allowances over a period of several months.

The pilots' strike is just one of the problems affecting the national carrier.

Last month, an Air Zimbabwe jet was forced to abort a flight to Victoria Falls and returned to Harare International Airport after developing a technical fault.

Once considered as one of the best airlines in Africa, Air Zimbabwe has been run down due to successive years of mismanagement, corruption, political interference and inadequate funding.

http://www.businesslive.co.za

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