Pilots optimistic about Uganda Airlines future

Uganda Airlines
Kampala, Uganda

Uganda Airlines pilots have portrayed an emphatic survey of where they see the airline. They earlier triumphantly ran a few commercial flights to different destinations.

Captain Emmanuel Mutebi said the airline’s marketing policy will play a major role to get more passengers to fly with it. He said they anticipate to start achieving reasonably good numbers on board within a quarter.

The revived Uganda Airlines flew its first commercial flight to Nairobi on Wednesday August 28, 2019 with just eight passengers on board.

It operated to Mogadishu the next day with 33 passengers and on Friday to Dar Es Salaam with just a few passengers short of being full.

The airline has said it is fully booked on the Dar route from September 3 to September 7, 2019. Captain Charles Karabarinde has called on Ugandans to support the airline. He said it was new, with experienced pilots and expected everyone to support it. Karabarinde has 40 years of flying experience.

Uganda Airlines comes at a time when almost all the airlines on the continent – except Ethiopian Airlines – are grappling to make profits. Kenya spends millions of dollars annually to bail out Kenya Airways that has been regularly making losses.

Rwanda also spends public money heavily to keep its national carrier running. So is South Africa with South African Airways. Aviation analysts have observed Uganda airlines must be in charge of the ground handlings business at Entebbe, which will make for it a bit of money.

The handling is currently done by Enhas Uganda which was owned by Foreign Affairs Minister Sam Kutesa and was in 2017 sold to a businessman from United Arab Emirates.
It will be difficult for the airline to get this business to its possession.

Also, government employees account for the biggest traffic at the airport. This is a constituency that the airline must tap into.

On August 5, 2019, President Museveni directed in a cabinet memo that all government officials travelling to destinations where the airline flies must go with the airline.

 

source https://ncairways.co/pilots-optimistic-about-uganda-airlines-future/