AIR TANZANIA BLASTED FOR ‘LACK OF FORWARD PLANNING’
(Posted 19th October 2014)
Reactions came in fast and furious after Air Tanzania on Friday announced the suspension of four domestic routes after one of the airline’s aircraft had to leave for heavy maintenance.
Flights to Mwanza, alongside Mtwara and two other destinations were suspended until at least mid next week for lack of an aircraft.
Industry observers rubbished the explanation by the airline’s Managing Director Lazaro Milton as ‘lame’ and ‘unprofessional’ when he was quoted to have said that the safety of passengers had to come first which is why planes are sent for maintenance.
‘I have not heard such a deluded statement in a while. What the hell has maintenance to do with that I wonder? Maintenance is performed according to a schedule which the airline has to submit to the TCAA and which has to be approved. When either time lapses or cycles are reached, the aircraft has to go for maintenance, full stop. That is known way in advance and it shows a very poor planning by ATCL that they do not have a replacement aircraft on site when a plane is sent for maintenance. Someone has again slept on the job. They should all be fired and the airline be closed because it is not just eating our tax money but also an embarrassment for the country. They just keep disappointing Tanzanians who still fly with them. No wonder so many passengers now fly with Precision or with Fastjet because those can be trusted more to actually fly’ ranted a regular aviation source from Dar es Salaam following the announcement that it would take several days to get a replacement aircraft to resume flights to key domestic airports.
Meanwhile have several travelers also complained to this correspondent about ATCL’s assurance that they will get a refund for tickets bought, claiming in the past getting money back from the airline was like ‘pulling teeth’, saying it was a very slow and cumbersome process and that they now have to buy tickets on Precision Air or Fastjet with extra money they had not budgeted for.
More recent statements by Air Tanzania’s management that a more substantial fleet expansion was underway have also until now not materialized again suggesting that management’s wishes and hopes and the facts on the ground have a large gap between them.
Watch this space for breaking and regular aviation news from across the region.
