DELAY IN GETTING NEW EMBRAER E190 IN THE AIR HAMPERS FLIGHT OPERATIONS
(Posted 08th November 2017)
Speculation is rife among aviation pundits over the reasons why the registration and type approval of Fastjet’s new Embraer E190 is being delayed by Tanzanian aviation regulators. The failure of the new aircraft to take to the air and commence commercial flights has reportedly led to the airline presently only offering one daily flight to Mwanza and having to push the newly announced schedules to the 15th of November, at least for now.
Main beneficiary is thought to be Air Tanzania, promptly leading to conspiracy theories being floated among aviation observers even though the planned expansion of services by the national airline being stopped dead in its tracks while one of their newly purchased planes is under lock and key in Canada following a seizure notice being carried out on behalf of a creditor which has not been paid their dues for several years now.
Fastjet, out of Dar es Salaam, right now serves Mbeya, Kilimanjaro, Mwanza but also Lusaka and Harare though with a reduced schedule due to lack of enough aircraft.
In contrast has Fastjet been able to step up operations in Southern Africa when the airline commenced domestic operations in Mozambique with regional services planned from Maputo to reportedly Johannesburg, Lusaka and Harare.
There have also been suggestions that Fastjet Zimbabwe may soon get traffic rights to link Harare to Bulawayo following the persistent failure of upstart FlyAfrica to take to the air and fulfil their published schedules.
