Uganda Airlines: Expanding African carriers’ wings
The rebranded Uganda Airlines is opening up the African skies albeit gradually, while also expanding into the hitherto monopolised routes of major carriers. The revived East African carrier is steadily becoming a giant in African space with its tenacious expansion of routes in the last four years when it began operations.
The airline is also attracting air travellers across the continent with right pricing of about N500,000 return tickets to most of its destinations, unlike the exploitative fares charged by major carriers on certain routes due to monopoly or lack of competition from Nigeria.
At a time the Nigerian Government failed to re-establish a national carrier for the country after the liquidated Nigeria Airways in 2004, due to several under the table dealing and its accusation of the country’s carriers as “undependable” in both domestic and international routes, the Ugandan Government saw the importance of a national carrier to the economic growth of any nation and decided to revitalise the former national carrier, which flew between 1977 to 2001 with the new Uganda Airlines that returned in 2019, barely few months to the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic, which put the world on its knees.
Since its birth four years ago, Uganda Airlines from its base at Entebbe International Airport has spread its wings to 12 cities, major African countries, including Nigeria and South Africa, Middle East with plans to operate into Europe, Asia and America soon.
With its small fleet size of six aircraft; two Airbus A330-800 and four Bombardier CRJ900ER, Uganda Airlines has been able to meticulously deploy its aircraft fleet. It’s a typical example of “not by size, but by utilisation.”
Uganda Airlines is also set to bridge the travelling time between Africa. In some cases, a traveller within the continent can first fly to Europe before connecting his destination in Africa with a huge man-hour and financial loss, but the arrival of Uganda Airlines may expunge such unpleasant situations for air travelers.
At the recent 7th Aviation Summit held in Abuja and hosted by the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Airbus projected that air transport would continue to grow by at least 4 per cent yearly in Africa between 2019 and 2042.
Joep Ellers, Airline Marketing Director, Africa, Airbus, said that for the African continent, air transportation would grow faster than the world’s average, stressing that this would be bolstered by the continent’s growing population, which is put as the fastest in the world.
He also estimated that Africa would require additional 1,180 aircraft between 2019 and 2042, while at least 75 per cent of such aircraft, representing 880, would be typical single-aisle and 300 of such airplanes would be wide-body.
This he said represented 25 per cent of the total airplanes that would be required on the continent within the period.
He said: “Between 2019 and 2042, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) will grow by 3.3 per cent yearly in Africa, while its population would increase by 831 million with the same period.
“Urbanisation in Africa to grow by 492 million and the traffic would grow annually by 4 per cent for the next 20 years.”
It is certain that the continent requires purposeful airlines to key into the future to capture the market and wrestle it from non-African carriers’ domination.
Already, Uganda Airlines with its three weekly flights into Nigeria about two weeks ago has keyed into the future and is making efforts to ensure the realisation of the African Union Agenda 1963 – Single African Air Transport Market (SSATM).
At its launch of the scheduled flights into Nigeria, Mr. Festus Keyamo, the Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, said that the Federal Government had approved additional two routes in the country for the airline.
According to the minister, the government has approved the Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport (MAKIA), Kano and Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport (NAIA), Abuja for the airline to operate from its base at Entebbe.
Keyamo said that the approval was in sync with the spirit of SAATM and the Yamoussoukro Declaration (YD), adding that it would make the Nigeria-Uganda route more open, accessible for passengers to and from Eastern and Western Africa and beyond.
He further stated that this was necessary in order to protect the interest of the continent’s over 1.37 billion people, which is about 17.4 per cent of the world’s population.
Jenifer Bamuturaki, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Uganda Airlines, reiterated that the direct non-stop flight would further reduce the flying time within Africa, especially between Nigeria and Uganda.
She said Nigeria being the biggest economy on the continent needed an airline like Uganda Airlines for further easy exploration and seamless connectivity of passengers.
She said: “We have closed the gap between East Africa and the West. We will be operating three times weekly in Nigeria.”
Mr. Adedayo Olawuyi, Chief Commercial Officer (CCO), Uganda Airlines, said that Nigeria being the biggest economy on the continent needed an airline like Uganda Airlines to further enhance its scope.
He explained that the airline would deploy its brand new Airbus 330-800 aircraft with the total capacity of 258 seats into the Nigerian route.
The configuration of the aircraft indicates; 20 business class seats, 28 seats in premium class and another 210 in the economy class, totaling 258 capacity.
In all, Uganda Airlines is setting the pace for other African carriers, while giving the already established airlines like Ethiopian Airlines, South African Airways and Kenya Airways a run for their money.
Its coming into the air terrain will further give the flying public wider choices and with good connecting time for travellers beyond Entebbe, it will become the passengers’ numero uno choice.
Like Bamuturaki said, the airline is determined to have a part of the cake from the passengers of other established carriers.
However, opening up the African skies by the continent’s governments would go a long way in easing traffic for Uganda Airlines and other African carriers, industry stakeholders said.
The SAATM, which aims to liberalise the airspace for the continent’s airlines they equally insisted must be implemented to the benefits of African carriers.
So far, only 23 countries have agreed to join the SAATM, which includes Benin, Botswana, Cape Verde, Cameroon, Chad, Central Africa Republic, Dr. Congo, Congo, Ivory Coast, Egypt, Ethiopia, Equatorial Guinea, Ghana, Gabon, The Gambia, Guinea and Nigeria, among others.
If the government gives Uganda Airlines the freewill to operate without interference like the Ethiopian Government is doing with Ethiopian Airlines, Uganda Airlines would continue to spread its wings.
