As we reported last week, Tanzanian national carrier Air Tanzania (TC) will resume flights on Friday 12 October 2012 using their Bombardier Dash 8-300 (MSN 474 | 5H-MWF) along with two
leased Boeing 737-500 of unknown origin.
In an interview with The Citizen, Air Tanzania’s acting Managing Director, Milton Lazaro, said negotiations with Dubai-based ACMI AeroVista, which should have been resolved by 10 October, were yet to be concluded. The carrier is, however, now aiming for a Friday morning launch with its first flight set to be Dar es Salaam - Mwanza.
Other routes to follow are:
- Dar es Salaam - Arusha, Tanzania on November 2;
- Dar es Salaam - Mtwara, Tanzania on November 16;
- Dar es Salaam - Moroni, Comoros on November 18.
Other routes will include Arusha - Zanzibar and Zanzibar - Dar es Salaam, with more local flights expected once maintenance at Kigoma and Tabora airports is completed.
 |
| Tanzania & Germany sign the BASA |
In the long run, Air Tanzania plans to start flights to Dubai
"before the end of November", with hopes of starting flights to China and Europe "by 2013."
During a recent visit to Germany, Tanzanian Minister for Transport, Harrison Mwakyembe, signed a Bilateral Air Services Agreement with the German government in the hopes of persuading German carrier, Lufthansa (LH) to re-introduce its flights to Tanzania, which were dropped back in 1994 due to poor loads.
Most interestingly however, are reports from Berlin that also made mention of Tanzania trying to attract Lufthansa into a joint venture with ailing Air Tanzania, though no further developments on the topic have been heard of since.
