Chaos As AirZim Cancels Yet Another Flight

Chaos As AirZim Cancels Yet Another Flight

Financial Gazette (Harare)
NEWS
April 5, 2006
Posted to the web April 6, 2006

By Kumbirai Mafunda Senior Business Reporter
Harare

ZIMBABWE'S national airline, Air Zimbabwe, has slipped further into
chaos amid revelations that it once again cancelled a chartered flight
to Cuba last Tuesday after failing to secure adequate fuel supplies.

Sources said the national passenger carrier, which was once voted the
best airline in Africa by a United Kingdom-based institute in 1998,
failed to secure fuel supplies from BP & Shell, its supplier of Jet A1.

BP & Shell is alleged to have asked Air Zimbabwe to settle its energy
debt first, estimated at $30 billion, before it could release any
supplies to the debt-ridden AirZim.

Air Zimbabwe gets fuel from private operators such as BP and Total
because it doesn't have equipment recommended for dispensing fuel from
tankers to the aircraft.

Presently, the national carrier requires about 450 000 litres of Jet A1
per week. But there is pressure to increase consumption after the recent
launch of a summer schedule that added more routes for the airline.

The Cuba flight was scheduled to leave Harare last Tuesday morning and
to make a brief stopover in London before proceedings to Havana.

The aircraft, chartered by the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare, was
supposed to fly Cuban doctors who had finished their attachments at
government hospitals back to their country.

But as a result of the fuel crisis, the Havana flight had to be
rescheduled and only left Harare last Wednesday morning via Lusaka,
where it refuelled after the airline managed to secure some foreign
currency.

Three weeks ago the national airline was forced to cancel its
Bulawayo-Harare flight after its aircraft failed to refuel in Bulawayo
because of a power outage imposed by the ZESA Holdings at Joshua Mqabuko
Nkomo International Airport.

Early last month, Air Zimbabwe cancelled a Harare-Beijing via Singapore
flight after it failed to release an aircraft, a B767, which was
undergoing a crucial check.

And just recently, a Johannesburg-bound plane aborted its trip because
of a technical fault after take off.

Air Zimbabwe spokesperson David Mwenga confirmed last Tuesday's flight
disruption, attributing it to the delay by a client in processing payment.

"Our client was not able to have the funds we required processed quickly
and we also needed the money to pay for onward movement," Mwenga said.

Apart from inflicting fuel shortages, Zimbabwe's six-year foreign
currency crisis posed problems for the airline in procuring replacement
parts, causing one of the airline's aeroplanes, a Boeing 737, to be
grounded.

Air Zimbabwe insiders also say that a Morden Ark (MA60) aircraft that
was donated by China after Harare bought two similar planes to service
some domestic and regional routes has been grounded for the past three
weeks after it developed some engine problems.

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