Published by the government of Zimbabwe
20 May 2009
editorial
Harare — REVELATIONS in Parliament that Air Zimbabwe cannot even meet its operational costs come as no surprise to us, neither does the fact that once again the airline is holding out a begging bowl for the Government to drop in millions of taxpayers' dollars.
Admitted, the travel warnings and illegal economic sanctions have negatively impacted on the airline's operations, but we feel astute management would have taken Air Zimbabwe out of the woods since the airline was never barred from flying over or into any country.
We are reminded here of the situation that faced Ethiopian Airlines during the tenure of former president Mengistu Haile Mariam, when just about everyone discouraged their nationals from going to Ethiopia and when that country had a zero credit rating.
Despite these setbacks, Ethiopian Airlines remained profitable, had a high credit rating and was able to buy its own aircraft without any handout or even input from its government. It all came down to superb management.
Air Zimbabwe needs to move into the 21st century and forget the era when national airlines were an expensive status symbol and an expression of national sovereignty that taxpayers were happy to fund.
In the modern world airlines are flying bus companies, and about as glamorous as their terrestrial counterparts. This is why most countries have privatised airlines and let them merge with competitors to form viable concerns or have let them go bankrupt.
Like many Zimbabwean State enterprises Air Zimbabwe seems to spend more on maintaining a large and cumbersome management, and one that shows little appreciation of what is going on, than on figuring out how to make money without subsidies or handouts.
Air Zimbabwe needs to live in the real world. Most international air travel is now on the hub and spoke system. And since 1994, OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg and Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi have become the dominant hubs for Southern and East Africa.
We would imagine that in this set-up Air Zimbabwe would be seeking as much of the "spoke" traffic as possible to Harare, Victoria Falls and Bulawayo from these hubs, using its diversified fleet to offer as frequent a service as possible on each spoke. No one wants to hang around airports for hours and most travellers will take the first available flight out of the hub where they were dumped to their final destination.
We would also expect more regional alliances, or even in time see these move to mergers, with other small airlines in central Sadc.
The major tourist attraction in this part of the world is the Victoria Falls, which is conveniently surrounded by national parks in Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia and Zambia.
While a lot of attention is put on the transfrontier national park centred on Kruger and Gonarezhou, there is already an informal and far more successful such park at the other end of the country. But others seem more eager than Air Zimbabwe to give large numbers of people a taste of the Falls, wildlife and spectacular scenery.
A smart alliance of airlines from all four countries could almost certainly bring in far more visitors and spread them around a bit more, building business for everyone without overstraining the infrastructure or overcrowding the Falls themselves.
The Government has battled for years to make Air Zimbabwe a success. There have been many changes of chief executive as successive ministers responsible for transport try to find someone who can manage the airline properly.
Backing has been given to supplying the airline with appropriate aircraft. And yet each time Air Zimbabwe has let its sole shareholder, the people of Zimbabwe, down by planning for yesterday's business instead of tomorrow's.
We think the time is fast coming when the Government just needs to cut the airline loose; for a start it needs to make it clear that the taxpayer does not have bottomless pockets and that it is time Air Zimbabwe woke up and became a real business.
Should mergers with other small airlines in the region be the way forward, then the Government can obviously help out diplomatically to ease the path to merger. Should extra traffic rights be needed then the Government can help negotiate these.
But these efforts will only work if Air Zimbabwe can come up with a viable and sensible plan, one that does not involve eternal subsidies.
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Zimbabwe is a country that cannot afford to give it's people clean water, minimal healthcare options or any semblance of an education; and yet there is a national airline? Who is served by this airline? Can common people even hope to need to fly somewhere, let alone be able to afford to do so? AirZim exists purely as part of the ZANU-PF patronage machine, just like the national youth group. It's high time that the parliament just says, "ENOUGH! NO MORE MONEY FOR ANY ACTIVITY THAT DOES NOT BENEFIT THE NATION AS A WHOLE." All of the parastatals should be… [Read Full Text]
Ndizvozvo.