Entebe. Uganda Airlines has secured slots for departures and landing at London Heathrow Airport and Dubai International Airport as it prepares for commencement of long haul flights to the UK, United Arab Emirates and China. This comes after the airline received its two Airbus A330-800Neo air crafts in December 2020 and last month.
The two destinations add to six countries and nine destinations in the region. These include Nairobi, Mombasa, Kinshasa, Dar-es-salaam and Mogadishu.
Roger Wamala, the Uganda Airlines Commercial Director says the two aircrafts, code named Mt Elgon and Mt. Rwenzori, will however remain grounded because the Uganda Civil Aviation Authority-UCAA has not yet cleared them to fly. UCAA is expected to clear the planes at the end of April.
Wamala says that for the London route, the national career has secured the slot for the summer season, that is March to October 2021. But even if UCAA clears the air crafts, he said, “we cannot fly to London because there is still a lockdown on non-essential travel to and from the UK.”
“Those are the two hurdles, so we have the slots but we cannot fly,” Wamala told Uganda said.
The operator of an airport allocates a slot, or specific time for an airline to land and take off at the airport. By the time of filing this story, the ministry of works and Uganda Airlines officials were yet to disclose that it took to secure the two slots in Dubai and London.
Uganda Airlines is expected to operate long and short haul flights to reduce air transport costs, boost Uganda’s tourism and exports among other objectives. With its fleet of 4 CRJ900 Bombardier and 2 Airbus A330 Neo air crafts, the airline plans to fly to 20 destinations on the African continent and flights to London, Dubai, Mumbai and Guangzhou.
Uganda National Airlines resumed operations in 2019, 18 years after its initial collapse. The airline collapsed in 2001 after operating for 25 years and the idea to revive it gained momentum in 2017.
It carried over 78,000 passengers from August 2019 to March 2020 to the nine destinations.
By Joan Akello– URN
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