Uganda Airlines: The journey of a thousand miles that started with one step

On October 7^th 2019, Uganda Airlines received two new Bombardier planes growing the number of aircraft fleet owned by the national carrier to four. The first two aircraft were received on April 23, 2019 at Entebbe International Airport and official operations of the Airline kicked off in September with regional flights.

Meanwhile the national carrier early his year firmed up its order for two A330-800 airliners, the latest version of the most popular A330 widebody airliner. Plans are to use the two aircraft for the second phase of the Airline’s growth plan, with flights to the United Kingdom and the Far East.

The Airlines plans to use the A330-800 to build its medium- and long-haul network with the aircraft offering cutting-edge technology along with more efficient operations.

While receiving the last two aircraft, then Uganda Airlines’ chief executive officer Cornwell Muleya said the arrival of the new aircrafts was a sign of commitment by President Museveni and the government of Uganda to revive the National Airline after almost 20 years.
The history

Upon the collapse of the East African Airlines due to bitter relations between the three East African countries, Uganda Airlines (owned by Government of Uganda) started air operations in 1977 with 15 carriers flying across Africa, the Middle East and Europe.

In the early 1990’s, Uganda Airlines hit turbulent times, with accumulated debts and financial mismanagement. This pushed government to try in vain to privatise the airline. With more than 2,000 employees and no aircraft to fly, government had no option but to liquidate the national airline in May 2001.

There were several interventions made by the government like engaging private sector players to revive the national carrier. One such attempt was the partnership with the Aga Khan Foundation which started Air Uganda, Africa One, which was a partnership with players from South Africa. Others were East African Airlines which only lasted two years, Royal Daisy Airlines which lasted 5 years and closed shop in 2010, Victoria International Airlines (partly owned by Government with 20% shares) lasted for only 2 months, among others.

In March 2019, Parliament approved a government request for a Ush280 billion supplementary budget to purchase two bombardier planes from Canada, which began operations with flights to seven destinations namely Nairobi, Mombasa, Dar-es-salaam, Mogadishu, Kilimanjaro, Bujumbura and Juba.

With the four bombadiers, Uganda Airlines will expand its route network to Kinshasha in DRC, Zanzibar, Asmara, Hargeisa, Lusaka, Harare, Johannesburg, Djibouti and Addis Ababa.

A report by NPA shows that Uganda loses about USD 540m annually on high transport costs mostly resulting from extra charges to passengers moving in and out at Entebbe International Airport due to the absence of a national carrier. Thus the decision to revive the airline is among other things designed to enhance the country’s competitiveness by reducing the cost of air transport and easing connectivity to and from Uganda, while promoting tourism, agriculture, minerals, oil and gas.

According to DW, a Germany-based TV network, there is an increase in air traffic with more Africans flying and the numbers expected to grow by 5% annually in the next 20 years.  The International Air Transport Association (IATA) estimates that the continent will see 274 million air passengers by 2036.

DW further indicates that Africa is an underserved market with passengers having to connect from one African country to a neighbouring nation but going through hubs such as Addis Ababa, Johannesburg, Nairobi – or even via Europe or Dubai because there are no direct flights.

According to the East African Business Week, an online business journal, the revival of Uganda national carrier will push the tourism in the Pearl of Africa to the peak by enhancing direct flight routes to Uganda for tourists after exclusions of the initial inconveniences associated with various stopovers.

There has been an increase in the number of tourists coming into the country. In 2019, Uganda received a total of 1.7 million travelers, noting an increase from 1.4 million visitors that had been received in 2014. The revival of Uganda Airlines will undeniably raise the number of travelers even higher to outcompete for the neighbouring tourism destination.

“With the current traffic at Entebbe equating to about 1.8 million passengers, a rise from 1 million passengers in 2014, which is a great achievement, it is only expected to shoot up in the coming years and also high rates of educated Ugandans having no active jobs, the airline will help to take a share of these individuals,” the EABW reported in October.