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UGANDA-AVIATION
Uganda Airlines gets first planes in revival bid
KAMPALA, April 23, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – The first two planes purchased in a
bid to relaunch Uganda Airlines were delivered on Tuesday, nearly two decades
after the East African country’s national carrier collapsed.
The two Bombardier CRJ900 jet airliners, which can carry up to 90 people,
landed at the Entebbe airport outside the capital Kampala during a ceremony
attended by President Yoweri Museveni.
“We are very happy that what we started months back to restart the
national carrier has begun bearing fruit,” said works and transport minister
Monica Azuba Ntege at the ceremony.
She added that two more planes purchased from Canadian manufacturer
Bombardier would arrive in July and September.
European aerospace giant Airbus meanwhile will deliver two long-haul
planes in 2020 or 2021.
Uganda Airlines CEO Ephraim Bagenda said the first flights on the revived
national carrier would take place in July, once a 90-day certification
process was completed.
“The 90 days will include demonstration to the (Ugandan) civil aviation
authority that we have the proper airline premises, trained staff,
maintenance provision, equipment to run an airline, and systems for the safe
and secure operation of an international airline,” Bagenda told AFP.
He said the airline would start with flights to regional neighbours in
eastern and southern Africa before expanding into Europe, Asia and the Middle
East.
But some local politicians have expressed fears that the airline could
suffer the same fate as it did in 2001, when it closed down after suffering
from corruption and mismanagement by political appointees.
“We are eagerly waiting to see what happens next because the same problems
that led to the collapse of Uganda Airlines are the same problems that
persist today — largely corruption, mismanagement and political patronage by
the government,” Ugandan opposition lawmaker and chair of the parliamentary
committee on state enterprises, Mubarak Munyagwa, told AFP.
“We pray this time round, the airline does not end up gulping taxpayers’
money for the sake of a political gimmick by the government,” he added.
BSS/AFP/BZC/1940HRS