Air Zimbabwe now on correct route to business

AIR Zimbabwe has had a troubled history in recent years, but is now once again growing with a business model that stresses the provision of decent and profitable services within the country and expansion into regional routes.

It is now able to expand as it climbs out of that trough it was in when under judicial management, as was seen with the arrival this week of a second Embraer ERJ145 to keep expanding its local route network and flight frequency, and so use the new opportunities created by a Government determined to expand our airport network and make sure all airports are adequate and user-friendly.

At independence, it was quite normal for State-owned national airlines to have monopolies, and have deals with other airlines in other countries where there were complete reciprocal rights, so if your airline had three flights a week to the other country, their airline had three flights back.

Ticket prices were thus largely set in what amounted to a monopoly market and could be as high as the traffic would bear. The number of flights was largely set to ensure that planes travelled full or nearly full, so with the control over prices and control over the number of flights making a profit was not really difficult.

This cosy arrangement had its downsides though. For a start it artificially reduced passenger numbers, with a price barrier keeping air travel in the semi-luxury bracket, and it meant that ground facilities at airports did not have to be that wonderful since people could accept what was there or lump it.

The global aviation market has changed dramatically since then, especially this century and both Air Zimbabwe and Zimbabwe itself were somewhat slow to respond and adapt to the huge changes, a situation that has changed with the advent of the Second Republic as the country embraces the new world of aviation and starts seeing where the real benefits, and real profits, actually are.

The new clear thinking moved away from the model that the primary goal was to ensure that more than half the flights on your territory had to be flown by aircraft with your flag on the tail, a very limited goal, and target.

What was far more important was ensuring that people who wanted to fly into Zimbabwe could fly in, and were treated efficiently and properly on arrival so they would encourage others to do the same.

The real function of air travel was to ensure that ever more tourists would spend holidays in Zimbabwe and that business travellers could book flights easily and quickly and get to where they wanted to go on the days they wanted to make their trips.

The real economic benefit to Zimbabwe came from non-aviation sectors, the vast and growing business in the tourism and hospitality sector.

As many have stressed, tourism is one of those sectors where rapid growth is possible.

Investment requirements might be large, but they are split up into quite modest units; you do not need to be a multi-millionaire to open a hotel or run a safari operation or create conference facilities.

A lot of relatively small and medium investments will in total produce a huge combined investment and capacity.

Tourism and hospitality businesses are labour intensive, a second major benefit. Skills are required, but a lot of these can be acquired relatively quickly, and in any case, there is a lot of learning on the job especially as theory is turned into practice.

Almost all top hotel managers started fairly close to the bottom, even with their degrees, working at the front desk or mixing salads in the kitchens and then showing their mettle as they rose up the ladder. While many of the new tourism jobs are not that wonderful, the pay is a lot better than many alternatives and no hotel or restaurant in Zimbabwe has problems filling vacancies.

Zimbabwe has been a leader in Africa in embracing the open skies policy as a result, allowing basically any airline that wants to fly in to do so, so long as it meets the strictest international safety standards and, importantly, pays the landing fees and airport charges that fuel the expansion of the airport network and have so dramatically improved services on the ground.

That in turn is fuelling the expansion of the tourism sectors, everything from hotels for top business people down the line to holidaymakers who want decent and clean accommodation at affordable prices.

Much of the hard work of airport renovation and expansion has been concentrated in the initial years of the Second Republic on the three international terminals.

Even the Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport, the one with the most modern infrastructure, was on the small side hence the major expansion and upgrade, while the other two definitely needed more extensive work to make them suitable for the rapidly growing passenger traffic.

Now the Airports Authority is flexing its muscles, with perhaps the example of the planning for a new Mutare Airport showing what the future holds. Mutare has always been a bit tricky for air services.

There is an “aerodrome” in the city, but it is unsuitable for anything, but small private planes. Grand Reef was a former Rhodesian air base on the other side of the western mountains, but again in the wrong place and with exceptionally limited space for a longer runway and the other facilities needed.

So now a decent site, on a large flat area to the north of the city has been identified in Mutasa South and when that airport is built the city will finally be connected to the aviation world.

No doubt the authority is looking for other sites in other centres, despite the beautiful hilly terrain in so many tourism destinations. The site of the Kariba Airport, for example, has been recognised for a long time as unsuitable because of zero space for a longer runway.

Air Zimbabwe itself has a better business model and is developing it. Open skies bring in the customers but they then need to move around the country, hence the selection of suitable modest airliners that can do this, efficiently and profitably.

By concentrating on the gaps in the market, Air Zimbabwe can, we all hope, grow into an airline that meets growing needs as a well-run business and provides essential services to the whole tourism and hospitality industry.

It is vital that we see Air Zimbabwe, and any other airline and all those foreign airlines taking advantage of our open skies, not as an end in themselves, but as the critical provider of the services that bring in the paying customers for a far larger and more important industry.

A school does not exist to run a school bus; it buys a bus to make education easier, better and for some subjects actually possible. We need to think of airlines in the same way, not to just exist on their own or show the flag or any other non-important goal.

They are there to move people where they want to go when they want to go, and make sure that they feed the rest of the hospitality sector.

Air Zimbabwe has now grasped this mission and as a consequence is growing once again, but this time with a business model that is sustainable, makes sense and with careful management is profitable in the short-term, medium-term and long-term, simply because it is doing the job the country needs it to do as a good business.