Dubai - Air Malawi, a fully government owned airline of a tiny Central African country of Malawi, yesterday announced resumption of its flights to Dubai after an eight year gap.
According to Esther Chioko, chief executive officer of Air Malawi, the reintroduction of the airline's services to Dubai is in essence the re-entry into the market that the airline used to operate before - back in 1998 as a joint service with Air Tanzania, but had to stop them because the latter decided to discontinue the partnership. The flights resumed on June 17,this time in association with Tanzania's Precision Airline.
She said: "There is a big market for our services as at the moment only two airlines are operating in this route, including Air Malawi and Air Zimbabwe." Using a Precision Air's Boeing 737-300 aircraft, Malawi's national carrier will operate from Tanzania to Dubai three flights a week on Sunday, Monday and Thursday.
The airline provides domestic, regional and international scheduled and chartered air transport services for passengers, cargo and passenger handling services. Traditionally, the airline has been operating as a feeder between the hubs of Nairobi and Johannesbourg.
Through its domestic hub in Blantyre and Lilongwe the airline operates to most East and Southern African cities of Dar-es-Salam, Lumbumbashi, DRC, Nampula in Mozambique and Harare in Zimbabwe, besides the regional hubs. It also operated domestic flights, which are synchronised with other international flights to make onward connections to most parts of the country.
According to Murtasa Versi, Precision Air head of sales and marketing, Kenya Airways has 49 per cent stake in Precision Air. He said: "If Air France and KLM can merge and have joint services, why not African airlines? We also want and can merge to offer joint services to our customers."
Both Air Malawi and Precision Air are represented by Al Rais Travel in the UAE.
By Jamila Qadir
© Khaleej Times 2005
