Harare — ZIMBABWE is set have a second airline that will hit the skies in September as the country's first low-cost airline.
The new airline's thrust will be on ensuring that flying is both affordable and convenient and is geared to cater for the burgeoning travelling population plying the Harare-Johannesburg and Bulawayo-Johannesburg routes.
This development comes in the wake of moves to make the country a more accessible tourist destination. Tourism has been identified as the sector that will experience the quickest turnaround ahead of other sectors under the Short-Term Emergency Recovery Programme.
It also follows the recent announcement that the Government would soon adopt the Open Skies Policy.
Aptly named Fly Kumba, the airline has positioned itself for growth in line with the Government's quest to rebrand itself and regain its position on the regional and global market.
The airline's chief executive officer, Mr Lloyd Muchaka and chief financial officer Patrick Chapwanya are the two major shareholders.
Mr Muchaka has extensive experience in road and air transport while his counterpart, a chartered accountant has held senior financial positions in South Africa.
Mr Muchaka said the airline's vision and mission was centred on ensuring that flying is affordable to everyone.
"We intend to become Zimbabwe's preferred low-cost airline, delivering the cheapest air fares with the highest consumer value and offering world-class service to price sensitive consumer.
"Fly Kumba intends to fulfil everyone's dream of flying based on a fare below US$80 - departure tax included - for a flight from Harare to Johannesburg," said Mr Muchaka.
He said the maiden flight was scheduled for September 2009.
Mr Muchaka said the new airline seeks to compliment the tourism service and sees the ongoing efforts to rebrand the country as another opportunity for the airline to play its part in enhancing the image of the country to the outside world.
Mr Chapwanya said the airline introduced the low-cost service as flying seemed to be viewed as an exclusive service for the elite and also considering that the prevailing economic recession meant tight budgets for the ordinary person.
He said Fly Kumba intends to pass on benefits of low transportation costs to its clients as every saving could be applied to cover other costs.
"We know that the objective of each traveller is to get to their destination and Fly Kumba has identified a workable solution enabling travellers to do just that without the burden of unnecessary costs, best turnaround time, reliability, cost effective and safety," said Mr Chapwanya.
The airline's primary routes will be Harare-Johannesburg and flights would be introduced for other routes such as Harare-Bulawayo, Harare-Vic Falls, Johannesburg- Vic Falls and Harare-Kariba.
Fly Kumba has a new generation fleet of Boeing 737, 200 backed by cutting edge technology and infrastructure to ensure the highest standards in operating efficiency.
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Its no good to be pessimistic but from a detailed current and future business trends in the aviation industry this is like voting for MDC-M for the next govt. Aircrafts are expensive to both buy, lease or run just as our Zim-Xpress airliness went bust. Who will board the flights when aviation fuel coupled with maintenance/opperational costs are bound to be volatile and who will be our potential customers as +85% of my fellow africans cann't afford just as much as going to holiday resourts and hotels for a meal or putting up. This is an ill thought out business plan after all Airzim survives on subsidies. The tourism,local/inter/reagional industial outlook and commercial farming sectors need a wand of magic to resucitate from the state of the camatoes economy since 2000 and with the future travelling industry looking very gloomy. Maybe, maybe like all business ventures we may cook stones and enjoy a very, very lovely soup.
Nyati, more airlines in Zimbabwe means more competition and better services. Zimbabwe airways cannot afford parts for their aircrfts, therefore it makes sense to bring other players who are able to run airplains efficiently and more safe. Zimbabwe airways is border line bankrupt. Mugabe knows that, that's is why is looking for another aircraft to fly him to Un and African meetings!
Well it won't take long for Airzim to become totally defunct. Such mismanagement will not stay in operation for long in a free market economy. It will be sad to see the national carrier go this way but due to Mugabe's thieving cohorts it is bound to happen.
A new Boeing 737-200 costs about USA 32 million dollars. I wonder how these two guys will manage to purchase these air crafts (diamond mines?), how well trained the pilots are going to be and how well serviced and maintained the planes are going to be. As a tourist venture, at a fare of USA 80 dollars per passenger, I can foresee these guys going bankrupt in no time and unable to recoup their investments as there is no longer a clamor for people to visit Zimbabwe at the present time. Mugabe is also going to be using one to fly around free of charge. Not to dampen Zimbabwe's spirit of progress, if everything is done properly and upfront, these planes are good.