Fastjet acquires Boeing 737-500 airplane, arrives in Dar Saturday

Dar es Salaam. Apparently financially-embattled Fastjet-Tanzania is nonetheless expected to acquire new Boeing 737-500 planes as part of its revival plans, the company’s executive chairman, Lawrence Masha, has revealed.

This somewhat surprising announcement was made just a few days after the Tanzania Civil Aviation Authority (TCAA) grounded the company’s only plane on account of debts owed by the airliner to its creditors. Consequently, the company was forced to suspend its scheduled internal flights

Speaking on a Clouds TV 360 programme on Wednesday (December 19,2018), Mr Masha said the plane is expected to arrive “in the next three days.

“After taking delivery of the first plane on Saturday, we expect another two Boeing 737-500 planes to increase our fleet – thereby resolving the flights cancellation challenges which the airline has been facing lately.

“All the planes we acquire will be registered in Tanzania – and, as the air travel demand grows, we expect to acquire one or two more Bombardier planes,” he said.

Fastject-Tanzania had 45 per cent of the air travel market share in Tanzania before it was hit by a financial crisis in recent times. It is already struggling to revive its services and regain the public confidence it had temporarily lost after some seven years of operations in Tanzania and beyond.

“We are in dialogue with the authorities, including especially TCAA, to allow us to start selling air traveltickets once again, as we have fulfilled some of the regulatory requirements and are continuing with the dialogue,” he said.

Arrival of the Boeing 737-500 plane will enable Fastjet to restart operations on its regional routes, including Dar es Salaam-Johannesburg, and Dar es Salaam-Nairobi. It will also enable the airline to revivfe its domestic schedules to and fromSongea, Dodoma, Bukoba and Arushausing the new Bombardier plane.

Despite cessation of the company’s services, all its employees were nonetheless paid their December salaries in advance and efforts are continuing to pay products and services providers as due – as well as paying debts to the regulator.

Mr Masha said he expects to meet with strategic investors from South Africa, China, Malaysia and India who have shown interest to invest in Fastject-Tanzania.

“I am sure that we are going to regain our 45 per cent market share in Tanzania’s air transport sub-sector,” he said – hastily adding that “we are not competing with any local airline; they all are our partners in the sense that we have been cooperating very well with them even during the crisis when we faced flight cancellations.”