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By Staff Reporter

ZIMBABWE'S national carrier Air Zimbabwe has resumed flights to Kinshasa (DRC) and Luanda (Angola) after almost six years, it was announced Wednesday.

Air Zimbabwe also rolled out new flight schedules to Guangzhou (China) and Dubai (United Arab Emirates) which were suspended last year.

“Flights to Guangzhou, which had been suspended in March as the airline’s second Boeing 767 underwent scheduled maintenance work resume in mid-April bringing the airline’s two weekly frequencies to the Far East back on line," Air Zimbabwe said in a statement.

The second frequency to Dubai, which had also been suspended due to the same maintenance work, will also resume next month.

Air Zimbabwe recently got a new chief executive officer Dr Peter Chikumba who has rolled out a turn-around strategy to establish Harare as Southern Africa’s second hub, after Johannesburg.

The airline added: “This development is part of Air Zimbabwe’s introduction of a new schedule called Equator South plus Ethiopia which begins on April 1. The airline has selected a defined area which includes countries south of the equator and Ethiopia, in which it seeks to consolidate its operations through direct
services, or partnerships with airlines operating in the defined area.

“The flights to Luanda and Kinshasa, running weekly, will operate on Mondays
using the 105-seater Boeing 737 aircraft, which also has a cargo capacity of
four tonnes. The operation would be tri-angular, starting from Harare to Luanda
and Kinshasa and then back directly to Harare. The flight will have a straight
connection to and from Johannesburg and will also feed the same day into the
airline’s Singapore and China operation.”

The airline added that a deal with Angolan airline TAAG, which operates in and
out of Harare every Friday, will see the airline providing two flights every week
for passengers flying between Harare and Luanda.

“These central African destinations will compliment the airline’s network which now covers Nairobi and Dar es Salaam in Eastern Africa, Lilongwe, Lusaka,
Lubumbashi, Gaborone and Johannesburg in Central and Southern Africa.
Effectively this network now allows the airline’s clients to access the Far and
Middle East and Europe, through Harare.”

AirZim said it stopped flights to Luanda in January 2001 because of the war in
that country.

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