Air Zimbabwe creditors take massive hit

Falcon Air to serve remote Zimbabwean tourist spots

State-owned charter carrier Falcon Air (Zimbabwe) (Harare Charles Prince) has introduced flights to Hwange National Park, located in northwestern Zimbabwe, in line with a new partnership agreement between its shareholder representative, the District Development Fund (DDF), and the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA).

This follows the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the two state-owned entities recently under which terms Falcon Air will provide connectivity into Hwange National Park and launch holiday packages to Hwange, other national parks, and remote holiday resorts, the ZTA announced in a statement, hailing it as a “significant milestone” in the development of the country’s tourism sector.

The agreement, also involving the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority (Zimparks), commits all parties to collaborate in order to introduce similar services and holiday packages to other Zimbabwean tourist resorts in an effort to kick-start domestic tourism, according to ZW News. It aims to boost a “ZimBho” domestic tourism campaign and complement the services of national carrier Air Zimbabwe (UM, Harare Int'l) and other domestic air carriers to...

Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe to see maiden inc'l ops in 1Q22

Victoria Falls International Airport, located in northwestern Zimbabwe, will see its first scheduled intercontinental passenger flights next year after EW Discover (4Y, Frankfurt Int'l), the new Lufthansa long-haul brand, announced the start of a 3x weekly return service to the resort town from Frankfurt Int'l via Windhoek Int'l, Namibia starting on March 30, 2022.

Lufthansa's General Manager (Southern & East Africa), André Schulz, confirmed to ch-aviation the airline has not been granted fifth freedom traffic rights on the Namibia-Zimbabwe sectors and vice versa but is working on attaining such. Fifth freedom rights would entitle the airline to fly from Germany and pick up revenue passengers in Namibia and carry them on to Zimbabwe, and vice versa.

The Zimbabwe government has previously granted fifth freedom rights to Kenya Airways (to Cape Town), RwandAir (to Cape Town), and Ethiopian (to Gaborone) through Victoria Falls in the interests of driving up tourist inflows to the region, situated along the Zambezi river. During the last decade, it spent over USD200 million to build...

Air Zimbabwe gears up for fleet, network growth

Things are looking up for Air Zimbabwe (UM, Harare Int'l) with the company set to exit business rescue on June 30, the government having released funds for the acquisition of a second EMB-145LR, and the airline resuming domestic and regional flights after having been grounded since January this year.

This has been confirmed to ch-aviation by Air Zimbabwe spokesperson Firstme Vitori. She confirmed a report by state broadcaster ZBC that administrator Tonderayi Brian Mukubvu, a partner at accounting firm Grant Thornton Zimbabwe, had successfully carried out his mandate of clearing the airline’s debts and expanding its fleet. “Since our appointment as judicial managers, we have successfully managed to clear local debts with creditors and also came up with terms for clearing debts with foreign creditors. We have since acquired new aircraft and the future of Air Zimbabwe looks very bright,” Mukubvu was quoted as saying. He was not immediately available when approached for comment by ch-aviation.

As previously reported, the Zimbabwean government last month declared it would settle the carrier's US-dollar era debts at...

Air Zimbabwe delays E145 debut