Zambia Airways pulls out of Zim

ZAMBIAN national flag carrier, Zambia Airways, has quietly pulled out of the Harare – Lusaka route, which it began servicing about six months ago, businessdigest can report.

Authorities and airline officials in both countries were this week not at liberty to disclose when or why the airline pulled out.

But Tawanda Gusha, chief executive officer (CEO) at the Airports Company of Zimbabwe, hinted the airline was working on ‘inhouse logistics’ before returning next month.

Zambia Airways was bullish when it touched down at Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport in March, saying it was targeting to fly 1,9 million passengers per annum as traffic grows.

Emmanuel Chisanga, executive assistant to the airline’s CEO, told businessdigest that the destination remained on Zambia Airways’ radar. He confirmed that it would be relaunching in November.

“I can confirm that we temporarily discontinued our services there and we are resuming early November,” Chisanga said this week.

“I will connect you to our commercial manager for him to shed more light on our plans.”

Gusha said the “in-house logistics” were being finalised.

“Zambia Airways are putting their house in order,” Gusha said.

“That is why they have not been coming and they have just revealed that as soon as they put their house in order they will bounce back.”

Competition is cutthroat on the HarareLusaka route. Smaller regional airlines on the route compete with global carriers, including Emirates and Ethiopian Airlines (ET), which enjoy fifth freedom rights, allowing them to land and pick up passengers in Harare and Lusaka as they proceed to other destinations.

Several Zimbabwean and Zambian airlines have tried but failed to compete.

In 2014, Air Zimbabwe introduced flights on the route as part of an ambitious network expansion programme that saw it also servicing the Harare-kariba and Harare-da es Salaam routes.

Flights to Da es Salaam are still on, riding on a boom in passenger numbers being driven by improved trade between the two countries.

But the airline quietly withdrew service to both Kariba and Lusaka as soon as they began.

Proflight Zambia, a privately operated airline in that country, introduced scheduled flights between Harare and Lusaka about four years ago. But it quickly retreated after struggling to repatriate funds from Harare, which battled for many years to address this challenge. Other airlines were at the time also owed millions of United States dollars by Harare.

Proflight’s director of government and industry affairs Philip Lemba confirmed at the time that working on the route was tough as Zimbabwe was not ready to give airlines their earnings.

“We regret to announce that due to the current situation in Zimbabwe and ongoing challenges with the repatriation of funds from Zimbabwe, we are temporarily suspending our Lusaka/harare route,” he said then.

Proflight had launched the route to boost passenger movements and connectivity between the two capitals, which share deep historical and economic ties. Zambia is one of Zimbabwe’s biggest trading partners. Zambia Airways was itself not new to Zimbabwe.

It pulled out of the country at the height of the first wave of economic crises in 2007.

Mutembo Nchito, who was CEO at the time, said: “Zambia Airways regrets to advise the general public that it will be suspending its daily services between Lusaka and Harare from December 1 2007 because of continuing operational challenges on the route caused by high fuel costs and extreme currency fluctuations in Zimbabwe.

“This is a commercial decision that we have taken after reviewing the performance of the Lusaka-harare route for some months.

“Regrettably, we see no prospect of improvement in the immediate future, and we have been forced to act this way,” he said in a statement at the time.

The pull out coincided with an exodus of regional and international airlines that failed to withstand the heat as Zimbabwe haemorrhaged under hyperinflation and political turmoil.

The airline would collapse in the following years, but was relaunched in December 2021 through a partnership between the Zambian government, the Industrial Development Corporation and Ethiopian Airlines.

It initially operated as a domestic carrier, before it secured foreign operator permits to kick-start a regional expansion.