Emirates (EK) has considered Harare, Zimbabwe as a site for a potential southern-African hub, the airline's senior vice president for commercial operations Africa, Jean-Luc Grillet, has said. The Dubai-based megacarrier, however, has yet to confirm any concrete plans to proceed with the setting up of a regional hub. |
| Harare International Airport (ZambeziAirCharters) |
Mr Grillet said after the success of its flights into Zimbabwe, Emirates would want to consolidate that, but that there were no plans to split the Lusaka and Harare flights into separate operations, "in the coming 18 months or two years." Only one year on from the launch of a five times weekly A330 service to
Harare via Lusaka, the route has now grown into a daily B777-300(ER) flight.
"Harare could be an interesting hub in future. From Harare you are close to destinations such as Mozambique. You are not far from Botswana, Namibia. There is real geographic potential of improving the development of the route. The market is growing fast," Grillet said. "[But] this is one thing we have on our scope. This is the logic for us to have nonstop flights from many points that we fly and it will be an improvement for the Zimbabwean market," he said.
Source [The Standard]
However, in light of Emirates' cooperation agreement with Tanzanian LCC, fastjet (FN), who themselves are due to enter the South African domestic market with Federal Air (7V), it is more likely that Emirates would rely on a feeder service provided by fastjet, as opposed to setting up a costly hub in Zimbabwe, where the political climate still remains fairly precarious. But, should Emirates indeed pursue a hub in Harare, it would come head to head with a planned Ethiopian Airlines (ET) hub in Lusaka, Zambia, where negotiations for the setting up of an ASKY Airlines-esque (KP) regional carrier are currently ongoing. Ethiopian also has the advantage of being a shareholder in a rejuvenated Air Malawi (QM) who are due to resume operations once suitable local Malawian partner has been selected.
However, in light of Emirates' cooperation agreement with Tanzanian LCC, fastjet (FN), who themselves are due to enter the South African domestic market with Federal Air (7V), it is more likely that Emirates would rely on a feeder service provided by fastjet, as opposed to setting up a costly hub in Zimbabwe, where the political climate still remains fairly precarious. But, should Emirates indeed pursue a hub in Harare, it would come head to head with a planned Ethiopian Airlines (ET) hub in Lusaka, Zambia, where negotiations for the setting up of an ASKY Airlines-esque (KP) regional carrier are currently ongoing. Ethiopian also has the advantage of being a shareholder in a rejuvenated Air Malawi (QM) who are due to resume operations once suitable local Malawian partner has been selected.