Rejuvenated Air Tanzania seeks to regain IATA membership

Dar es Salaam. Air Tanzania Company Limited (ATCL) has said it is making efforts to revive its International Air Transport Association (IATA) membership as it prepares to launch international flights.

ATCL lost its IATA membership in 2008, a development that saw the latter banning the company from all international aviation transactions.

IATA also informed all travel agencies and other aviation companies to stop all transactions with ATCL due to accumulated debts.

But now that ATCL is back in business, the company is seeking to regain the chance of selling tickets via the IATA platform.

In April, ATCL signed a five-year agreement with HAHN Air for selling ATCL tickets especially for international routes being a temporary measure to benefit from the business. In June, the company was audited by IATA where auditors told ATCL management on what should be done to regain its membership and also to be accredited. ATCL Communications department head Joseph Kagirwa told The Citizen that the company was optimistic that all will be well with its IATA membership and that in the course of time, the national carrier will once again be able to use the IATA ticketing platform.

“Normally, airlines receive accreditation within one year after auditing but we expect this to take place any time soon, even before the end of this year,” he said, however declining to give details on how much the national carrier is supposed to pay in membership costs. He was, however, quick to say that IATA membership helps airlines to directly receive money from ticket sales and also that accreditation is beneficial even outside the association.

Speaking during the signing of an agreement with HAHN Air in Zanzibar in April, the ATCL’s chief executive officer Ladislaus Matindi said the debt amounted to billions of shillings.

“HAHN AIR is allowed to help IATA non-members in selling their tickets. We will use them while strengthening our capacity to collect funds,” he said.

Currently, ATCL is marketing its rates for direct flights between Dar es Salaam and Mumbai in India which will be operated using the newly acquired Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner.

The flights, according to Mr Kagirwa were to start this month (September) but for reasons which he could not reveal, the flights will now start between late October and early November. “We haven’t commenced selling the tickets. What we did was publish fare rates for the trip. Our clients will be informed when we start selling the tickets,” he said in a telephone interview.

According to the advertisements, clients will have to pay $286 and $455 for one way and return tickets respectively.

ATCL will be flying from Dar es Salaam to Mumbai on Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays and from Mumbai to Dar es Salaam on Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays.

Regionally, ATCL is flying to Comoro, Uganda and Burundi.

Apart from the Dreamliner, currently ATCL has three Bombardier Q400 planes.

Tanzania received a total of 107,361 tourists from North America (USA, Canada and Mexico) in 2017, with the USA alone accounting for 81 per cent or 87,238 of the total number.

The UK, German, Italy and India completed the top five list, bringing to Tanzania 66,491; 58,370; 49,909; and 39,115 visitors respectively.