Air Zimbabwe (UM) is to start flights from Harare to Lagos, Nigeria and Accra, Ghana with the first flights due in March 2013 reports out of Zimbabwe state.  |
| Interair B767 ZS-IJB (nomadaviationimages) |
The new routes are likely to be serviced by the airline’s two Airbus A320s, though the Zimbabwean national carrier has also been operating a Boeing 767-200ER (MSN 23180 | ZS-IJB) leased from South Africa's Interair (D6) of late.
“Our assessment is that quite a significant number of Zimbabweans are travelling to Nigeria and so we are taking advantage of this development,” said one of the (newspaper) sources.
Should the West African routes materialize, UM will be competing with South African Airways (SA) and Air Namibia (SW) who operate Windhoek - Accra, Ghana (with a possible Lagos route launch in future) using Airbus A320s.
Air Zimbabwe is also set to relaunch flights from Harare to London Gatwick at some stage in Q1 of this year, though no confirmations have yet been given. A UM spokesman said that plans to introduce other regional and international
flights would also come "sometime in March", but did not divulge any further information.