Burundi Airlines, Burundi's new national carrier, officially sees the light of day
Burundi also wants to make a place for itself in the African sky. Since 2017, the country has been working on the creation of a new airline, replacing Air Burundi which has been grounded for 12 years. It is done, the constitutive act of Burundi Airlines has just been signed.
Burundi has a new national airline. Thursday, February 4, the Minister of Trade, Transport, Industry and Tourism, Immaculé Ndabaneze, chaired the constitutive general assembly of Burundi Airlines. During this meeting, the shareholders approved, among other things, the creation of the company, the adoption of its registered office, and the designation of the reference shareholder (the State).
The new carrier is born from the merger between Air Burundi (the former national flagship which suspended its operations in 2009) and the Burundian Airport Management Company (SOBUGEA). The majority shareholder of the parastatal, the state owns 92% of the shares, divided between the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Trade and Transport. The remaining 8% is shared equally between the Burundi Insurance Company (SOCABU) and the Belgian Anonymous Company for Air Navigation Operations (SABENA - bankrupt). Its capital is estimated at over 15.9 billion Burundian francs ($ 8.2 million).
We know a little more about the ambitions of the carrier whose slogan unveiled is: "Flying to bridge Africa with the world" ("Flying to bridge Africa and the world") suggests a future deployment on the routes international outside Africa.
But no date has yet been set for operational start-up. "We cannot say that the theft is for next week", the minister replied to the local press after the general assembly. Ms. Ndabaneze says the operationalization process will take "a lot of resources in time and money". And it is during this that the type of fleet and the funding model will be defined.
“The staff of SOBUGEA and Air Burundi will remain in place; but obviously they are going to sign new contracts, because it is a new company, "promised the government member.
As a reminder, Air Burundi, created in 1971 and launched four years later, suspended its operations in 2009, due to technical and financial problems. At that time, it had only one aircraft, a Beechcraft 1900. The arrival of a Chinese-made MA60 aircraft in 2013 was not sufficient to relaunch its activities. At its peak, Air Burundi served Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.
