PRECISION AIR ANNOUNCES NEW DESTINATIONS
Starting on 18th of May will Precision Air, Tanzanias most successful private airline, commence flights between Dar es Salaam and Lubumbashi / Congo DR, which will be served via the Zambian capital of Lusaka. Return launch fares have been put on the market at US Dollars 599 return, all taxes inclusive.
The airline has, in order to facilitate expansion of the route network, a leased B737-300 coming on line which is presently being readied for delivery at the Kenya Airways maintenance facility in Nairobi, before joining the PW fleet within the coming days. In addition are another 6 ATR 72-600 on order, one of the most economic turboprop aircraft presently in service, the first of which is due for delivery in October this year before at least two more will be delivered in 2013, mainly to expand domestic and short regional services where the use of larger jets does not make financial sense.
The airline also announced plans to commence flight to Angola later in the year as the projected growth takes root with more frequencies and more destinations.
The announcement will be welcome news to strong critics of the Tanzanian governments warped sense of economics, insisting that they will revive erstwhile national carrier ATCL, which only last week crashed their sole operating aircraft during a botched take off attempt, once more leaving the skies over Tanzania to Precision Air, which now operates more flights to more domestic destinations than ATCL ever has even in its former heydays. Said a regular aviation source from Dar es Salaam in a mail just received: I think it is high time that the efforts and achievement of our countrys most successful airline ever is being recognized by our government. Instead of throwing money at a dying horse with its last kicks, which has become a huge embarrassment for Tanzania and an undefendable drain on our treasury, they should call it a day and buy shares in Precision and be a major shareholder in the airline. Then they can have seats on the board, and make it a quasi national airline which pays dividends and not comes begging every so often for more bailouts.
Another source however discounted this option saying that the Tanzanian government is deeply rooted in the 70s command economy mindset, very suspicious of private enterprise and its successes and ever ready to jump on investors, or have proxies like unions jump on investors once their ventures are up and running with the aim to bring some level of socialism and redistribution into the equation, allegations often heard and only repeated recently during an economics forum when government was challenged by leading academics to review their approach to private enterprise and move beyond lipservice into concrete action to support the private sector.
Watch this space for breaking and regular news from Eastern Africas aviation industry.
