Mukuba
Airlines, dubbed Zambia's first Budget airline/LCC, is set to start
operations in the next few months, in time for the XXth United Nations
World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) General Assembly to be jointly held
in Livingstone & Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe in August this year. |
| Livingstone's new international terminal |
Using start-up
capital of "between USD5 - 15million", the venture is the brainchild of
unnamed foreign investors, Zambian aviation professionals based
overseas and local business men whose aim is to revolutionize air travel
in the landlocked southern African country, by making it more
accessible to ordinary people.
At a recent press conference held in Lusaka, Mukuba Airlines Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Mwansa Chalwe, said:
“Research findings were that the Zambian macroeconomic indicators had been consistently good over a time frame of ten years. The research concluded that it is the good macroeconomic and stable political environment of the country that is attracting many foreign investors to Zambia in order to seize investment opportunities in various sectors including tourism,” he said.
Source [LusakaTimes]
Mukuba
says it will initially launch operations from its Livingstone base, and
will focus on the domestic travel market using ATR 42-500 and ATR
72-500 aircraft, with maintenance to be taken care of by Air Botswana
(BP).
The airline will be going head to head with Proflight Zambia (P0),
the sole surviving operator in Zambia since Zambia Airways (QZ)'s
dissolution in 1995, which has seen 3 domestic/regional carriers come
and go.
In a recent interview,
Proflight's Chief Executive Officer, Captain Phil Lemba, and Commercial Director, Keira Irwin, stated that, while their carrier had
experienced strong growth over the last three years (10%), high airport
taxes and the lack of a coherent national aviation policy, as well as a
huge influx of foreign carriers into three of the country's four major
international airports, were negatively affecting the local aviation
scene.
They
argued that to grow the domestic travel market both for business and tourism,
higher passenger volumes are needed, which would in turn bring down
costs owing to economies of scale.
In
their opinion, if Zambia restricted international operators to serving
only Lusaka, then that would funnel more passengers through local
operators, increasing local traffic and allowing them to deploy larger
aircraft.
