atc

Wolfgang’s East Africa report
By Wolfgang H. Thome

The latest developments in East Africa tourism as reported by Prof. Wolfgang H. Thome.

AIR TANZANIA NEWS

Air Tanzania has over the weekend launched its new livery, logo and brand, portraying a modern forward looking new airline, which it is now set to become once again, after emerging from the aviation coma former partner SAA has put it into with their incoherent policies and market approach.

It has also now been confirmed, that ATC will shortly get two leased Bombardier Q200 turbo prop aircraft to deploy on their domestic routes and counter the market gains made in the recent past by Precision Air, when Air Tanzania had no suitable aircraft available to operate on lower density routes.

This precedes the delivery of at least two new Bombardier Q400, when becoming available from the manufacturer in Canada .

In addition, and arguably even more important, it has also been confirmed by sources close to the airline, that ATC has paid the required deposits to Airbus for three single aisle Airbus A319’s and two long distance A330’s for delivery as soon as the production schedule allows.

This development, repeatedly mentioned as breaking news in this column in past weeks, will set the Tanzanian national airline fully on the way to recovery, allowing them to resume a full schedule of regional, continental and intercontinental flights.

What can be ruled out almost with certainty is that predators and upstart wannabes, which have since the sacking of SAA as ATC’s partner made unsolicited and unsuitable advances to ATC will be shown to the door from now onwards, as none seems suitable nor able to help fulfill Air Tanzania’s ambitions and national aspirations.

It was learned in the process of establishing the facts from informed sources, that one particular “suitor” tried to "dump" old aircraft on ATC and was of course rightly told to go else wither with their nonsense.

It has always been this correspondent’s opinion, that the existence of a sound national airline is of strategic importance to countries like Tanzania, as it will solely concentrate on generating traffic into the country at all times, while many foreign carriers pull out of routes when the going gets tough.

It also assures added cargo capacity for exports of produce like flowers, fish, fresh fruits and vegetables to the ready markets of Europe and the Arabian Gulf , while supporting the generic marketing of the country to attract more tourist and business visitors, like no foreign airline could ever do.