Zambia Airways’ relaunch postponed again till third quarter of 2019

The relaunch of Zambia Airways is once against postponed to the third quarter of 2019. Mounting debts and losses forced the government to cease its operation in December 1994 and in the same month the airline was put into liquidation.

Ethiopian Airlines in association with the government of Zambia signed an agreement to relaunch the State airline on October 24, 2018, the Zambian Independence Day. This is the second time the relaunch of Zambia Airways got deterred as the government looks forward to finally put all logistics in place to ensure it is able to launch in the third quarter of 2019.

There have been disagreements over the operations model for the airline submitted by the Industrial Development Corporation. The technocrats at the Ministry are objected to the type of aircrafts the IDC and its shareholder Ethiopian Airlines wants to purchase fearing that they may result in losses, Lusaka Times noted.

In its model submitted to the Ministry, the IDC wants Zambia Airways to build a fleet of 12 aircraft by 2028 using the US$30 million initial investment. It hopes to be transporting 1.9 million passengers by 2028 adding that “it will put in place a performance-driven culture to ensure the airline is commercially viable.”

“Further, we don’t have a CEO yet, the board will have to meet first to determine how the question of the CEO will be dealt with the other shareholder. There are some suggestions from Addis Ababa that they give us a CEO but Government seems against that proposal so these are the reasons for the deferment,” one source gave the information to the website.