AIR TANZANIA PILOTS FAIL TO REPORT ON DUTY STRANDING HUNDREDS
(Posted 01st January 2015)
Reports from Dar es Salaam claim that a number of pilots of Air Tanzania, the ailing national airline, have failed over the past few days to turn up for duty, leaving aircraft on the ground and several hundred passengers stranded.
The strike, what else can this be called, has left passengers destined for the Comoros but also to domestic destinations unable to reach home in time and has once again cast doubts over the airline’s future.
Operating a Bombardier Q400 and a CRJ200 has the airline time and again required financial bailouts from the Tanzanian government at the expense of taxpayers without ultimately being able to deliver the services the people of Tanzania in general and travelers in particular expected from them.
The constant rise of Fastjet to become the country’s leading carrier in terms of passengers carried, which competes with ATCL on the routes from Dar es Salaam to Kilimanjaro and Mwanza and the resilience shown by Precision Air in the face of their financial challenges did not help Air Tanzania to get the passenger numbers they needed to make financial ends meet. There has been speculation that the pilots went on strike, some say that some called in sick, over unpaid allowances and salaries but neither could be confirmed from the company which has remains silent on the cause of it all.
‘ATC translates again in to All Travel Cancelled and at this time of the year it is a disgrace. This is when people need to either go home or come from home to return to work and the lack of flights will affect them very badly. It is going to dive even more people to Precision and Fastjet and how then can this airline of ours survive? The next we hear will be another begging bowl handed to government to eat more of our tax money’ said a regular source from Dar es Salaam.
Private airlines have off the record expressed their concerns over the uneven playing field, where they have to shoulder their own losses while their rival Air Tanzania gets government bailout money time and again. ‘We have said it before, this distorts the market. We have to struggle to meet financial obligations and ATC gets another bailout? To the point, it is against the law to do this in this day and age. If they cannot survive on their own, let them go under. Government can easily buy shares in the other airlines or simply stay out of business altogether. Parastatal companies really no longer have a place more so if they cost taxpayer money instead of earning profits and paying dividends’ said another Dar es Salaam based source on condition of anonymity for not being an official spokesperson of the company.
There have been some indications that passengers have been rebooked on other airlines but there is no indication as yet when ATC’s flights will return to normality.
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