The Zimbabwe state-owned airline, Air Zimbabwe, is rated among the world’s worst and is faced with ”total collapse,” according to the head of a special parliamentary committee.
The state-run daily Herald on Tuesday quoted MP Silas Mangono, the chairman of a parliamentary committee that examines state-owned businesses, as saying that the airline’s ratings had fallen and it was now ”ranked as one of the worst in the region and internationally.”
The 38-year-old airline has been overwhelmed by debt, massive losses, critical shortages of foreign currency, a slump in sales of tickets, an aged fleet and zero international credit worthiness, said Mangono.
”Serious viability problems needed to be addressed urgently to prevent its total collapse,” he said of the airline.
Its six aircraft — three Boeing 737-20s, two Boeing 767-200ERS and a BAe 146 bought in 1989 and 1990 — were ”very old” said Mangono, and required constant maintenance. Two of them were grounded for lack of spare parts.
The aircraft were unsuitable for domestic and regional routes and often Air Zimbabwe has to use a 109-seat Boeing 737 to fly 30 passengers from Johannesburg, South Africa, to the northwestern resort town of Victoria Falls.
In November last year, Air Zimbabwe narrowly avoided having its two long-haul Boeing 767s being seized for non-payment of debt to United States-based Export-Import Bank. The bank agreed to reschedule its debt. – Sapa-DPA