Aviation experts: One plane not enough for the long routes
www.ippmedia.com/en/news/aviation-experts-one-plane-not-enough-long-routes
if the national flag carrier is to accomplish its mission of becoming a commercial airline of international note by making regular direct flights to the US, China and elsewhere.
According to a few industry commentators who spoke to ‘The Guardian’ yesterday, the government should go ahead and purchase more big planes as back-up support in case the one aircraft earmarked so far for the purpose of operating on the long routes breaks down or needs to be grounded for maintenance or other reasons.
As part of President John Magufuli’s grand plan to revive the once-straggling ATCL in a bid to boost tourist arrivals in the country, the government recently placed an order for one 242-pasasenger Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner at a cost of 224.6 million US dollars, expected to arrive in the country in mid-2018.
Although the dollar price tag at the current official exchange rate stands at around 480 billion/-, this is expected to have risen to close to 520bn/- by the time the plane gets here – a 40bn/- difference.
ATCL has also this year acquired at government expense two Bombardier Q400 aircraft costing $62 million total, two Bombardier CS300 jetliners and one more Bombardier Q400 turboprop aircraft (combined cost $203 million). The initial two Q400 planes are already operational on local routes.
Commenting on the Dreamliner acquisition in particular, former ATCL chief executive officer Bakari Mwapachu remarked in a telephone interview with The Guardian:
“It is possible that the government did a cost feasibility analysis for market sustainability, and maybe the government has made an agreement with other airlines to work with in case of an emergency.
But it is difficult to work with one aircraft on such long distance flights…the function ability of the plane must be pre-cautioned… you must have back up aircraft on the fleet because you can have technical faults and passengers will shout a lot.”
A long-serving ATCL pilot who preferred anonymity said although ATCL will be starting with one long-range aircraft for intercontinental routes, “in this situation the government must lease another aircraft to substitute with another one in order to do smooth business”.
“It is impossible to do intercontinental flights with just one aircraft…that would be a dangerous move,” the pilot added, noting that the government needs to institute a strong market strategy to survive in the intercontinental flights market.
When contacted, the deputy minister of Works, Transport and Communication, Eng. Edwin Ngonyani, said once everything is in order, ATCL will start flying directly to the US and China from the commercial capital Dar es Salaam.
Ngonyani described both the US and China as countries with great tourism potential. “There are more tourists in those two nations who would want to fly directly to Tanzania. Apart from that, there are many investors who come from these two countries,” he said.
He added that “probably later on we will start flying to Europe.”
According to the PS, it is imperative to start modestly and watch how the market trends unveil. He offered the example of Rwanda’s national airline which when venturing into the international flights market “started with one aircraft, but now they have more than five aircraft on their fleet.”
