WORLD> Africa
Zimbabweans urged to makes effort to lure back foreign airlines
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-03-18 21:01

HARARE -- Zimbabwe's Civil Aviation Authority has urged stakeholders to combine efforts in marketing Zimbabwe to lure back airlines that used to fly into the country, New Ziana reported on Wednesday.

CAAZ general manager David Chawota said stakeholders had a responsibility to lure back airlines into the country as they stood to benefit from business that travelers generate. "All stakeholders have to be involved in the efforts to lure airlines back into the country," he said.

Chawota said Zimbabwean airspace was open to international airlines and stressed that none had been denied the right to fly into the country. He said the drop in airlines flying into the country in recent years was due to a variety of reasons, among them operational and viability challenges.

"Airlines have withdrawn from Zimbabwean airspace due to various reasons which include operational and viability challenges," he said, adding that political differences with Europe had also resulted in European airlines pulling out.

Currently only 12 airlines including the South African, Kenyan and Ethiopian airways are flying into the country, down from about 45 airlines which operated in the country in the 1990s.

Since 2001 Australian, French, Dutch and Portuguese airlines have withdrawn from Zimbabwe. British Airways pulled out of the London-Harare route in October 2007 citing viability problems.

Aviation experts have said it is important for stakeholders to co-operate as the international financial crisis was making re-engagement of international carriers a mammoth task. More than five million people flew into Zimbabwe in 1996 but the figure has drastically fallen as the absence of airlines has made the country inaccessible.

CAAZ has since established bilateral air transport relations with several countries that include Austria, Germany, Italy and New Zealand as well as Thailand in the Asian Pacific region which are ready to be fully exploited. Meanwhile, Zimbabwe is a signatory of the Yamoussoukro agreement which liberalized African airspace.

"We signed an agreement as the African Union where all states with the exception of a few have liberalized their airspace," Chawota said.