• The African Aviation Tribune •

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

► NIGERIA: Pilot & Engineer Strike affecting Air Nigeria.

Air Nigeria (VK) has come clean and admitted that a 5 day old strike by members of the Nigerian Association of Aircraft Pilots and Engineers (NAAPE) is starting to impact its domestic and regional flights, though its international operation to London Gatwick has remained unaffected.

The NAAPE strike is focussed around 4 core issues namely:

Delayed payment of salaries to both local and foreign staff
Pension deductions not remitted for over seven (7) months
Co-operative deductions not yet remitted
Tax refund and tax clearance issues

Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos

Air Nigeria management however, has refused to budge from its own position and in a statement has labelled the strike as "blackmail" and "uncalled for" and claimed that the union did not seek recourse in order to resolve their grievances. It also alleged that the NAAPE was in cahoots with competitors jealous of Air Nigeria's progress.

"It is very unreasonable and cheap blackmail for NAAPE to embark on strike action based on non payment of May salaries at the mid night of May 31st when infact some of the staff had collected their salaries with the rest of the staff still being processed.
It is therefore illegal and criminal for NAAPE to allow itself to be used by Competitors, who are envious of the giant steps already taken by Air Nigeria and Management is already working on a policy that will put a permanent stop to this cheap blackmail’

Read More Here [Nigerian Bulletin]

Passengers at Lagos' Murtala Muhammad International Airport have been subject to delays and flight cancellations which has led to angry scenes at check-in counters and ticket booths.

The NAAPE has been a perpetual thorn in the side of Air Nigeria's management, as in November of last year, they again moved to strike following the sacking of Air Nigeria's Head of Maintenance Department James Erigba, because of a disagreement over an aircraft's airworthiness.

► KENYA: Kenya Airways drops Rome route effective immediately.

In a some what sudden development, Kenya Airways (KQ) has announced the immediate cancellation (i.e as of 4 June 2012) of its 3x weekly service from Nairobi to Rome, Italy.

A Kenya Airways B737-700 in Rome in April (Aldo Bidini)

In March, the airline temporarily suspended the service citing low passenger loads, but then resumed it using a Boeing 737-700, a downgrade capacity-wise from its original Boeing 767-300.

► TANZANIA: Air Tanzania's boss fired; 4 others suspended.

After much pomp and fervour over the airline's relaunch last month, the Tanzanian Government has fired Air Tanzania's (TC) acting Managing Director, Paul Chizi, and suspended four senior officials due to "irregularities in their appointments apropos the Tanzanian Public Service Act of 2002, amongst other accusations of breach of public service laws and regulations."

This morning, at 03.36am local time, an Egyptair Airbus A320-200 (SU-GBG), performing flight MS 849 from Cairo to Nairobi, skidded on touchdown at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, before eventually ending up in soft mud. There were 123 passengers on-board all of whom were able to safely disembark from the stranded aircraft.

Egyptair A320 SU-GBG in the mud at Nairobi. (Buggs79)

"All passengers and crew were safely evacuated to the terminal building even as all emergencies operations at the Airport including fire and rescue were activated immediately."

The resulting closure of Nairobi's lone runway has caused numerous delays and diversions for various airlines, most notably Kenya Airways, who have had to delay many departures as well as divert many arriving aircraft to either Mombasa, Entebbe or Dar es Salaam

► NIGERIA: Civil Aviation Boss suspended; Dana Air grounded.

The Nigerian Government has moved to suspend the Director General of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, Dr. Harold Demuren, for the duration of investigations into both the Dana Air 9J-997 tragedy in Lagos on Sunday, and the Nigerian-registered Allied Air Cargo Boeing 727 crash landing in Accra, Ghana the day before.

Together, the two crashes have claimed over 170 lives, with numbers to rise, as more bodies are discovered at the Lagos crash site.

The Dana Air MD 83's tail being removed. (Reuters)

"“The latest Dana aircraft crash is even more tragic than the previous ones with a total casualty figure of about 190 people, including 153 passengers, six crew members and about 37 people on the ground.
“This crash is a wake-up call for all relevant authorities to rise to the challenge of ensuring that no effort is spared in making the nation’s aviation industry conform with international safety standards,” he said."

Read More Here [Punch Nigeria]

The Government has also revoked the operating licence of Dana Air until further notice.

""As soon as we have concluded the recertification of the airline, if they are capable, then their license will be reinstated," said Sam Adurogboye, a spokesman for the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority."

Read More Here [CNN International]

The revocation follows in the wake of a promised shake up of Nigeria's poor civil aviation safety record, which amongst other things has seen 5 fatal crashes in the last 10 years, as well as the arrest/suspension of high ranking government officials on allegations of corruption and bribery most recently the attempted arrest of the Managing Director of the Lagos-based Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), George Uriesi, on suspected allegations of graft by the Nigerian Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

► EGYPT: Egyptair Express mulls fleet renewal before expanding into Africa.

Following on from the events of last year's Arab Spring and consequently a very difficult financially 2011 whereby the airline's profits took a 75% plunge, Egyptair (MS) has decided to reorganize its fleet and route operations by offloading several of its "thinner" African routes to its subsidiary Egyptair Express (MSE).

Egyptair Express Embraer E-170LR

Possible routes to be moved to Egyptair Express are Cairo to: Khartoum, Sudan, Asmara, Eritrea and Juba, South Sudan all which are presently served by the Boeing 737-500, whose capacity appears to have come in under Egyptair's proposed policy of maintaining only 140+ seater aircraft in its main fleet. In the interests of fleet renewal and of finding suitable aircraft for these new routes, Egyptair is considering the Embraer E-190 or Bombardier CSeries.

"It has also used Embraer aircraft to increase frequencies. Following the sharp drop in passenger numbers after the Egyptian revolution in early 2011, it moved some strategic short-haul routes to the E-170LR fleet to maintain frequencies and transferred non-strategic short-haul routes to the Brazilian aircraft to preserve market presence."

Read More Here [ATW]

Presently, EgyptAir Express operates 12 Embraer E-170LRs to destinations in Egypt, Greece, Hungary, Lebanon, Malta and Saudi Arabia.

► SOUTH AFRICA: SAA axes Cape Town - Heathrow; boosts Accra & Mumbai.

South African Airways (SA) will drop its iconic daily Cape Town - London Heathrow service with effect from 15 August 2012. The airline cited low yields on the route as its main cause for dropping the route. In the last 3 years, the annual number of tourists using London as a final destination or as a transitory airport has declined.

Libyan airline, Afriqiyah (8U), has expanded its renewed network to now include flights between both Tripoli and Benghazi, Libya and Amman, Jordan using an Airbus A320.

► MOZAMBIQUE: LAM likely to restart Maputo - Harare from October 2012.

Linhas Aéreas de Moçambique, better known as LAM Mozambique Airlines (TM), is to tentatively re-establish twice weekly flights on Wednesday and Sunday to Harare from Maputo via Beira using its DHC-8-400, with effect from 27 October 2012, though the reports are unconfirmed as yet.

LAM Mozambique Q400 (Peter Tonna)

The airline last served Harare in the early 2000s, but then dropped the service due to the downturn in the Zimbabwean economy.

LAM Mozambique Airlines: Maputo, Mozambique - Beira, Mozambique - Harare, Zimbabwe
-Effective 27 October 2012

TM342 MPM 0935 - 1110 BEW 1140 - 1230 HRE DH4 | 37
TM343 HRE 1330 - 1420 BEW 1450 - 1625 MPM DH4 | 37

Source [Amadeus]

► CONGO (BRAZZAVILLE): EC Air to start Brazzaville - Paris.

Republic of Congo airline Equatorial Congo Airlines (LC), or more commonly EC Air, are to start 3x weekly flights between Brazzaville and Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport, using its Boeing 757-200.

Transportes Aéreos de Cabo Verde, TACV, the Cape Verdian flag carrier, has taken ownership of the first of its two ILFC Boeing 737-800s (N734MA & N742MA) ordered as part of its fleet renewal program.

Following on from our initial report, Zimbabwean private start up Sol Air (ZS) has now revealed its plans for upcoming routes it intends to serve using a fleet of Bombardier CRJ-900s.

Amongst the cities to be served from its base at Harare International Airport are: Bulawayo, Dar es Salaam, Johannesburg, Tete (Mozambique), Lusaka and Victoria Falls. It also plans to serve Johannesburg - Victoria Falls and Johannesburg - Bulawayo, two routes that are at present serviced exclusively by South African carriers.

A familiar sight at Harare - empty slots. (William Whaley)

No further news on how a resurrected Air Zimbabwe has been performing on domestic routes has been made available.

Meanwhile, at a recent conference of the African Travel Association (ATA) held in Victoria Falls, Shingi Munyeza, chief executive officer of hotel and leisure group, African Sun Limited (ASL) told international delegates that there was nothing wrong with African governments regulating domestic air services in order to protect troubled national airlines.

"You need to let in (foreign) airlines but ensure you don't destroy the local airline," Munyeza told the ATA congress. "

African governments have been burnt before where they have opened the skies," said Munyeza.

Once again, this adds to the notion of total discord between official Zimbabwean Government policy and private industry with regards to the serious development of local aviation, as just recently, Minister of Tourism and Hospitality Walter Mzembi stated:

"We are over-protecting Air Zimbabwe. We all know that government is a signatory to a declaration that promotes an open sky policy. What I wonder is why we have not been able to motivate any new airlines into our airspace?"

Politicking aside, the answer, however, is simple.

As long as Zimbabwe's government is willing to live with the prospect of subsidizing an inefficient millstone of the Air Zimbabwe sort whilst strangling any potential private carriers under the guise of the Civil Aviation Authority of Zimbabwe (CAAZ), then it will only have itself to blame when it finds its tourism and aviation infrastructure both undeveloped and underexploited, because after all, tourism thrives on reputation, and what good to a country is an airline reputed only for late arrivals and shoddy service?

► ETHIOPIA: Airbus pitches A330 to Ethiopian.

European aircraft manufacturers, Airbus Industrie, were recently in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, showcasing their A330 in an attempt to woo potential orders from carrier, Ethiopian Airlines (ET). This follows on from a technical presentation made last year in November.

In 1998, Ethiopian placed an order for two A340s to use on its Addis Ababa - Washington DC route, both of which were never delivered, instead being replaced by the airline's present Boeing 767-300s.

The Ethiopian A340 that never was. (Eric Pajaud)

"Crawford Hamilton, director of the A330 programme, told The Reporter that executives of Ethiopian were evaluating the A330 aircraft.

Hamilton said last November an Airbus technical team made a technical presentation to senior officials of Ethiopian in Addis Ababa. “The A330 is a very good long-range aircraft,” says Hamilton. “Ethiopian Airlines is one of the leading airlines in Africa. It is a reliable customer. It is self-sufficient. So we are trying to sell a very good aircraft to a very good airline.”"

Though a very loyal Boeing operator (of its 48 aircraft at present, 40 of them are Boeing), Ethiopian Airlines did place an order worth some USD$3billion for 12 Airbus A350-900 XWBs at the 2009 Dubai Airshow, for use on its "Far East and the American operations" and with further strong growth forecast in the next 20 years, the airline could be doing a lot more business with Airbus in the near future.

► EGYPT: Egyptair adds 777 to summer service to Guangzhou.

Egyptian carrier Egyptair (MS) has announced operational changes to its Cairo - Guangzhou, China route for the duration of summer 2012. Initially, the airline planned to use an Airbus A340-200 exclusively on the route, but will now employ a mixture of Boeing 777s and A340s.

Egyptair Boeing 777 at Guangzhou, China (MSAL)

Egyptair: Cairo, Egypt - Guangzhou, China (1 June 2012 - 27 October 2012)
MS958 CAI2325 – 1515+1CAN EQV x27
MS959 CAN0005 – 0500CAI EQV x24

01JUN12 – 15JUL12 Boeing 777-200ER

16JUL12 – 31AUG12 Airbus A340-200

01SEP12 – 14SEP12 Boeing 777-200ER

15SEP12 – 27OCT12 Boeing 777-300ER

Read More Here [AirlineRoute]

Sunday, June 3, 2012

► NIGERIA: Dana Air MD-83 slams into building in Lagos; 153 feared dead.

A Nigerian Dana Air (9J) McDonnell Douglas MD-83 (5N-RAM) has crashed into a building in Iju neighbourhood (more specifically: near Ayinla Bus Stop, north of the airport, Iju Ishaga road, Agege), Lagos, Nigeria whilst on approach into Murtala Muhammad International Airport, en route from Abuja.

Dana Air MD-83 "5N-RAM"

There were 153 (147 passengers and 6 crew) people on-board - all of whom are feared dead - whilst there are more casualties on the ground whose numbers are yet to be established.

Conflicting media reports state that the aircraft, whilst on approach into Lagos, initially hit power-lines, before careering through a furniture shop and then into residential buildings, before bursting into flames, though this version of events still has to be verified.

On May 10, another Dana Air MD-83 (5N-SRI) was on approach into Lagos when an on-board hydraulic failure was reported. The aircraft continued for a safe landing thereafter.

The MD-83 down in Lagos (NigerianEye)

For More images click here.

Today's disaster comes after a Nigerian registered Allied Air Cargo Boeing 727-200 freighter (5N-BJN) yesterday (Saturday 2 June 2012) overran the runway at Accra's Kotoka International Airport and killed 12 people on the ground: 11 occupants of a Benz 207 Bus and a soldier riding a bike along the road.

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

► UNITED STATES: Delta drops Atlanta to Accra & Monrovia.

American carrier Delta (DL) is to axe its Boeing 767-300ER service from Atlanta to Accra, Ghana and Monrovia, Liberia with effect from 11 August 2012 as a result of high jet fuel prices and inconsistent passenger traffic.

However, the airline has stated that it will increase its better performing New York - Accra route from 4x weekly, to 5x weekly.

Delta Boeing 767 at Accra (PRM)

"Although the Atlanta flight will be phased out, Delta will increase its weekly frequency from New York to Accra from four flights to five, the airline said in a statement. The removal of three Atlanta flights and three to Monrovia cuts the number of Delta weekly flights serving the Ghanaian capital in half. Delta still has the New York routes, which also connect in two days per week to Abuja, Nigeria."

Read More Here [Global Atlanta]

The airline first serviced the route in 2010, and comes in the wake of fellow American carrier United's decision to cancel its Washington DC - Accra route from July 2012, citing poor yields aswell.

► SOUTH AFRICA: 1Time drops Lanseria Airport hub.

South African LCC 1Time (T6) has announced that it is to cease its Lanseria Airport operations with effect from 2 June 2012, in order to better focus and consolidate its domestic and regional services out of Oliver Tambo International Airport, Johannesburg's largest airport.

1Time McDonnell Douglas MD-83 at Johannesburg.

1time Airline CEO, Blacky Komani says that the retraction of the Lanseria routes was motivated by a decision to optimise its overall operations.

“We have taken the decision to consolidate all our local and regional flights from OR Tambo International Airport and concentrate on our African projects that are currently underway. Pending seasonal demand, and commercial viability of the airport, we may look at reviewing our Lanseria services in the future.”

Read More Here [IOL South Africa]

The axing of Lanseria comes at a difficult financial time for 1Time, who recently went through a particularly rough patch whereby it posted losses amounting to USD$17million for 2011, followed by the resignation of its then CEO Rodney James.

► DJIBOUTI: Air France alters Paris - Djibouti service.

Air France (AF) is to alter its present 3x weekly service from Paris to Djibouti via Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, to operate via Riyadh, Saudi Arabia instead, with effect from 2 September 2012. An Airbus A330-200 is used on the route.

An Air France A330 in Djibouti (Pepa T.)

Paris CDG – Riyadh – Djibouti

AF524 CDG1350 – 2050RUH2205 – 0030+1JIB 332 146

AF525 JIB0220 – 0440RUH0600 – 1130CDG 332 257

Riyadh service will increase from 3 to 5 weekly as a result (existing non stop terminator service will operate as 2x weekly instead of 3x). Djibouti frequencies remain unchanged.

Paris CDG – Jeddah – Djibouti 3 weekly service operates until 2 September 2012.

AF3870 CDG1110 – 1805JED1920 – 2125JIB 332 136

AF3871 JIB2345 – 0150+1JED0305+1 – 0805+1CDG 332 136

Read More Here [Airline Route]

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

► ALGERIA: Air Algérie to lease an A340 for summer.

Algerian flag carrier Air Algérie (AH), has announced that it will lease an Airbus A340-300 (9M-XAB; c/n 273) from Asian LCC AirAsiaX, to supplement its services for the duration of summer.

Emirates Airlines (EK) has announced the postponement of the resumption of its A380 service from Dubai to Johannesburg originally reported to start 11 June 2012, to 1 October 2012.

Dubai – Johannesburg EK761/762 Planned A380 service resumption now postponed till 01OCT12, instead of 11JUN12"