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Burundi: Air Burundi Set to Fly Again
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East African Business Week (Kampala)
29 October 2007
Posted to the web 29 October 2007
Walter Isengedi
Bujumbura
Following a year of inactivity, Air Burundi is set to fly again to soak up growing demand for air travel in and out of Burundi.
32-year Air Burundi, a government owned company has been revitalized following a successful overhaul of its single aircraft, a Raytheon Beech 1900C airliner recently.
Execujet, a South African company that does aircraft repairs carried out the overhaul.
The aircraft made a successful journey back home and touched down at Bujumbura International Airport (BJM) last week on Tuesday.
The actual cost of the refurbishment could not be established by East African Business Week because the total cost had not yet been calculated and there are still more payments to be made.
Air Burundi will also do some pre-bookings, an awareness campaign as well as an official media launch. The Raytheon Beech 1900C Airliner carries 18 passengers and would resume the Kigali and Entebbe routes. Previously, the air rates for Entebbe were $350 for Entebbe and $150 for Kigali. The new rates may be a little more.
Air Burundi stopped operations in October 2006, and exactly one year later, normal flight operations are set to resume.
The Air Burundi fleet was originally composed of three aircraft, two DHC-6 Twin Otter Series 300 and one Raytheon Beech 1900C Airliner.
The DHC-6 Twin Otter Series 300 are out of service, but the Raytheon Beech 1900C Airliner underwent intensive overhaul and repair to put it up to acceptable international standards of operation.
Over the last one year, Air Burundi has attempted to lease some aircraft but nothing has come of those attempts.
During the time it was not operational as an air passenger service; staff at Air Burundi did not lose their jobs, but were instead re-located to other services, which continued normally.
These services included ground handling, fuelling and ticketing operations for other airlines that operated in the Burundi air space.
The staff are therefore available and are excited to restart full operations.
"Our clients had been making constant inquiries and asking us when we would resume operations. The demand was very high for direct flights to regional destinations like Entebbe," said Mrs. Marie-Salomé Ndabahariye, the administrative and finance manager, Air Burundi.
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Mrs. Ndabahariye was non-committal about the date of actual resumption of airline services, but said the airline was in the process of completing all the pre-launch activities like partnerships and agreements, licensing etc. with various aviation authorities and airlines in the region.
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| Copyright © 2007 East African Business Week. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections -- or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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