The coronavirus pandemic has thrown Uganda Airlines expansion plan off balance.
Plans by Ugandan Airlines to have its carrier fly to nine new routes starting April 2020 will have to wait a little longer following the outbreak of the corona virus that has forced the airline to suspend all its operations.
Prosper magazine has learnt that the suspension comes at a time when the Airline on March 28, 2020 had concluded all plans to kick-off, starting with Kinshasa, Goma and Lubumbashi routes all in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Plans paused
According to Mr Perez Ahabwe, the Uganda Airlines board chairman, talks between Uganda Airlines and the aviation teams from Democratic Republic of Congo had progressed, dates had been set for the Crane to start flying this April.
"By the end of April, we had anticipated to have the carrier fly to Lusaka, Harare and Johannesburg and to this effect, we had secured office space in Lusaka to start of the process," Mr Ahabwe said.
Other routes include the Khartoum – Sudan, Cairo- Egypt and Hargeisa in New Somali Land which were to start by the End of June- 2020
Until last month, Uganda Airlines has been flying to seven routes including Bujumbura, Nairobi, Mombasa, Kigali, Mogadishu, Juba and Zanzibar with an average of five flights a day per plane.
According to the Uganda Airlines business and implementation plan, it is a requirement for the airline to review route performance and market parameters across the established network to see where further investments may be made in the step with actions to extend its markets.
That is what prompted government to add another nine routes on the already existing destinations, bringing the total to sixteen flights due to the profitable routes the airline is currently plying.
Currently, the carrier is doing between 49-50 flights per week in the region, Mr Ahabwe told Prosper magazine."To break even, it will happen with in two- to three years from now which is dependent on how many routes we shall be flying to although the coming of the long haul might eat into the finances of the CRJ900," he added.Despite the carrier being grounded at Entebbe International Airport requiring servicing, the Airline still has a number of running contracts for the next five to seven years that require them to pay up.According to the board, it is still hard to determine how much is required in the mean time for both servicing […]
