We did not abandon South Africa route, says ATCL DG

“We didn’t abandon the South Africa route, but we were forced to withdraw in order to address legal issues threatening our operations on that route. We are almost done, and soon you will see the wings of Kilimanjaro return to Johannesburg,” said Mr Matindi.

Though he did not mention the exact legal issues that the airline was facing in Johannesburg, it was around that time that a South African court issued an order to impound one of the airline’s Airbus A220-300 planes over a case that dated to 1982.

It was claimed by Hermanus Styne’s lawyer that Tanzania owed $33 million, including interest, in compensation after his land was expropriated.

However, though the Airbus was later released, it was not clear whether Tanzania cleared the debt owed to Mr Hermanus P. Styne, the former owner of the Arusha-based Rift Valley Seeds Company Ltd.

With an expanding fleet that now includes a cargo plane, Mr Matindi said the airline’s network expansion programme is implemented according to their business plans based on the lucrativeness of the routes.

“That is why we continue expanding our network gradually. We are the ones determining the lucrativeness of routes based on our criteria,” said the DG.

But that incident hasn’t been the only legal issue that the airline has faced in recent years, with its planes being impounded in Canada and most recently in the Netherlands as creditors target ATCL’s planes as attachments to court awards.

In another development, though it was widely reported in November 2019 that Air Tanzania was set to launch direct flights to Britain after the carrier secured three landing slots at London’s Gatwick Airport, this has yet to happen.

According to reports then, the airline was set to fly from Dar es Salaam’s Julius Nyerere International Airport to Gatwick via Kilimanjaro International Airport, making it the national carrier’s first foray into Europe.

Mr Matindi, however, refutes the claims that they ever made such an announcement, though he admits that it was a process that had been initiated by the airline.

“I don’t remember ATCL making an announcement on acquiring this slot; in 2019, we were in the process of applying for a slot in Gatwick, but the process was not concluded due to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Reports at the time said ATCL had fulfilled the IATA Operational Safety Audit, which is a mandatory requirement for any airline wishing to fly internationally and gain landing rights in other countries.

The requirement was also necessary to support negotiations with other IATA airlines for interline and codeshare agreements.

Air Tanzania was one of 15 newcomer carriers—and the only one from Africa—to request landing slots at Gatwick, the ninth busiest airport in Europe, it was reported then.

However, according to aviation magazine Simple Flying, the slots were lost in 2020 due to inactivity, which was caused by legal issues, the pandemic, and a lack of suitable long-haul aircraft.

Tanzania has missed out on direct flight connections to the UK since 2013, when British Airways abandoned the route between Dar es Salaam and Heathrow International Airport after around 40 years of service and despite enjoying high passenger numbers at the time.

Apart from domestic flights, the national carrier flies to Entebbe, Nairobi, Bujumbura, Lubumbashi, Harare, the Comoros, Lusaka, Mumbai, and Guangzhou.