Air Tanzania clarifies on sudden change of 787 schedule

What you need to know:

Speaking in a telephone interview with The Citizen’s stablemate, Mwananchi, ATCL chief executive officer Ladislaus Matindi refuted recent claims that the plane postponed its operations due to mechanical problems, allegations that went viral.

Dar es Salaam. Air Tanzania Company Limited (ATCL) has made a clarification on the postponement of some of its flights by the new Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, which plies the Dar es Salaam, Mwanza and Kilimanjaro routes.

Speaking in a telephone interview with The Citizen’s stablemate, Mwananchi, ATCL chief executive officer Ladislaus Matindi refuted recent claims that the plane postponed its operations due to mechanical problems, allegations that went viral.

He admitted that the plane temporarily halted its operations, but it was in order to meet technical requirements by the aviation industry.

According to Mr Matindi, the Dreamliner is undergoing routine maintenance especially in its Wi-Fi system.

“As per the agreement, after conducting its operations for three consecutive months following its purchase, Boeing engineers must inspect the plane. This is why the plane hasn’t been operating for the last few days,” said Mr Matindi.

He added: “The pilots are also still under training...they have to be familiar with the plane before they take it overseas. So, all the rumours regarding the condition of the plane are not true and should be ignored,” he said.

According to Mr Matindi, the plane was expected to resume its daily operations by yesterday evening.

“Earlier, we planned that the maintenance would be done after three weeks from this week, but the technicians from Boeing wanted the maintenance to be done this week,” said Mr Matindi.

He added: “We couldn’t disregard the advice from technicians and that’s why some flights on various routes were disrupted.”

Mr Matindi said the maintenance work started on Wednesday soon after the plane landed at the Julius Nyerere International Airport from Mwanza. He insisted that no passenger was left behind in Mwanza as people were claiming on social media platforms.

To clarify more, ATCL Communication officer Joseph Kagwirwa said all passengers who booked to fly with Dreamliner, were taken to their destinations by the company’s Bombardier plane.

“We called each passenger who was scheduled to fly with the Dreamliner to notify them of the changes,” he said.

About fifty passengers were stranded at the Kilimanjaro International Airport (KIA) for over six hours after ATCL changed the Dreamliner schedule, a source who preferred anonymity told this paper.

The source said that they were scheduled to fly to Dar es Salaam from Kilimanjaro at around 12am, but as of 6pm they were still at the airport.

The passengers were forced to fly on different flights, the source said further.

“The first group of 50 passengers departed at around 6.30pm while those of us who were in the last group left the airport at around 9pm,” said the source, who was one of the passengers.