Cash-strapped national carrier Air Zimbabwe has suspended its flights to London fearing the seizure of its planes by a European navigation agency over a $2,8- million debt, an official said on Saturday.
Air Zimbabwe board chairperson Mike Bimha was quoted by the state-controlled Herald as saying the Agency for the Safety of Air Navigation recently won a court order to impound the national carrier’s planes to recover its debt.
”It’s a debt that accrued well before our time,” Bimha was quoted as saying.
”As a security measure our lawyers have advised us to suspend flights pending discussions with the agency’s lawyers.”
London is one of Air Zimbabwe’s most lucrative destinations. The newspaper said the national carrier resorted to arranging for its London-bound passengers to be accomodated on British Airways and South African Airways flights.
But the development inconvenienced passengers who needed to catch connecting flights from London.
”The good thing is that we are into the winter season in the United Kingdom where the numbers of passengers are not too big so we have no problems transferring passengers to other airlines,” the paper quoted Bimha as saying.
Air Zimbabwe’s fortunes have been flagging in recent years because of shortages of fuel and spare parts, as well as allegations of poor management.
Dwindling tourism numbers have contributed significantly to the carrier’s problems as visitors from traditional tourism markets, such as the United States and western Europe, have shunned the Southern African country.
Air Zimbabwe acting chief executive officer Oscar Madombwe told members of parliament earlier this year that passenger numbers slumped from one million in 1999 to 23 000 last year.
Last month the national carrier announced fare increases of up to 500% on both international and domestic routes.
Meanwhile, fuel shortages forced the national carrier to ground its entire fleet for more than a day in November last year.
Zimbabwe has been experiencing fuel shortages for the past six years blamed on shortages of hard currency. – Sapa-AFP