[SIZE=7]South Africa impounds Air Tanzania’s plane[/SIZE] Saturday August 24 2019
Air Tanzania forced to cancel flight from Johannesburg to Dar es Salaam.
Air Tanzania aircraft. FILE PHOTO | NATION MEDIA GROUP By THE CITIZEN
A plane owned by Tanzania’s state-run airline was seized in Johannesburg by South African authorities, a senior government official said.
Mr Leonard Chamuriho, the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Works, Transport and Communications, said in a statement that the plane belonging to Air Tanzania Company Limited was seized Friday following an order by the Gauteng High Court of South Africa.
“We are working to ensure that the plane is released immediately,” said Mr Chamuriho.
Air Tanzania was Friday forced to cancel its flight from Oliver Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg to Dar es Salaam.
The managing director of Air Tanzania Ladislaus Matindi said the State carrier had made arrangements with other airlines to carry the affected passengers.
This is not the first time that Air Tanzania has faced trouble in South Africa.
Last month, a delegation from the national carrier was turned away at the Oliver Tambo International Airport during its inaugural flight to Johannesburg.
Mr Matindi blamed “miscommunication” between the airport and immigration officials for the hitch that saw him, and his deputy minister Elias Kwandikwa, other ATCL officials and journalists denied entry into the airport for a welcome ceremony.
The state-owned airline launched its maiden flight to South Africa’s business capital Johannesburg in June, in a move aimed at bolstering relations between the two countries
Tanzania is one of the countries that stood with blacks in south Africa during apartheid while Kenya was busy licking whites micoondus. South Africa should stop embarrassing Tanzania
I would be one of the first people to bash Tz but this is bad and uncalled for. They should have had a settlement away from public. Tz did a lot for SA in the struggle period.
i think by now you should have realised that people never keep their end of the bargain once they profit from the deal.its a common occurence around the world
I was about to say the same. Why would an African country hold another country’s airliner hostage because of some shitty excuse? Pathetic! WaDanganyika huwa na tuufala twao, but this is a new low by SaatAfrikaans…
Tanzania once did like that to a Kenyan delegation that was on an official mission at their Tanga port when we were jostling with them for the Uganda oil pipeline.
The lesson here is that you can have an airline but that is far much different from having a functional airline. Tz airlines is mostly currently a PR airline for the state more than a functional airline. Everything is paid for by the treasury from fuel, parking fees etc. All expenses necessary for it to fly. However the last few weeks Tz treasury forex cover is down to 1 month. The serious implications that triggers is that all government projects and expenditure abroad seizes immediately. They have been limiting forex for the last year but can’t hide the shortfall any longer. The reason the plane was detained was because of bills it can’t pay. Fuel, parking and statutory bills at the airport. Then its management has zero experience in airline management. That’s how its government bought a 787 dreamliner plane then parked it for 6 months at Dar airport as they figured out where it should fly to. They then realized the paperwork between states to allow its flight took months to be processed. So imagine it was parked for that long with birds shitting on it as officials wrote papers to India, South Africa, China to allow it to fly there. Then since planes need to fly regularly to achieve airworthyness certification, they flew it domestic between Mwanza and Dar to keep the engines certified:D
