The Precision Air company to open more regional routes

TANZANIA' s leading airline service company, the Precision Air is set to expand its operational services by opening other five regional air flight routes within central and southern Africa region. Business Times has been informed. The company's Managing Director Alphonso Kioko said in an exclusive interview last week in Dar es Salaam that, his company is expecting to inaugurate a maiden journey of these routes in January and February and later in October next year. “The first route will be inaugurated to Lubumbashi in DRC followed by Luanda in Angola, these two air flight routes will be effected between January and February next year” he said adding that, other three routes will be inaugurated in October. The inauguration of these five routes will make the total number of seven routes plus the two ones under which the airline operates. These routes are Johannesburg in South Africa and in Comoro Islands which were inaugurated early this year. He mentioned the other three routes with their respective countries in brackets as follows, Lilongwe (Malawi), Lusaka (Zambia) and Harare (Zimbabwe). However, he said all these routes will be succeeded following plans by the company which are underway to buy the third aircraft, boeng 737 whose aim is to boost the regional internal flight services. He says after the purchase of the boeng aircraft which will be acquired on hiring basis from a US based company at a cost of between US$ 100,000 and 150,000 per month, his company is planning to bring in two brandy new ATR 42 aircrafts next year.

According to him, one boeng plus two aircrafts, these would bring flexibility to clients and will make the total number of the aircrafts owned by the company to be 14, which by no any doubt, he is optimistic the operations will be smoother to cater the need of the customers within East, Central and Southern Africa region. On the issue of the maintenance of its aircrafts, the company is currently busy to finalize the construction of its long awaited hangar at the Julius Nyerere International Airport (JNIA) which is expected to be ready within one and a half months' time in order to accommodate these aircrafts. However, he cited weather conditions for being the main challenging factor that constraints their flight programs. These are to be issued by Tanzania Civil Aviation Authority (TCAA) on alert that impends any danger ahead, and is uncontrollable. He said for the last two months, his company has had experienced a problem of weather in Bukoba, Shinyanga and in Mara regions mostly due to the prevailing rains. He said the aircraft operating in these regions experienced strong weather conditions an aspect which forced them to suspect or cancel their flight schedules for a while. In addition to the weather challenges one of their aircrafts, ATR 42 was grounded and after its maintenance its operation is back in full swing and has now improved. Meanwhile in another development, the Precision Airline sought to raise close to TZS28 billion Tanzanian shillings (USD$16.5 million) from its IPO for modernization and expansion of its fleet, but managed to collect just TZS11.84 billion shillings. The company is co-owned by Kenya Airways offered 58,841,750 shares for sale during the IPO that ended last week. "The response of the public has been very impressive and we expect increased demand from large institutional investors these last days," Lauren Malauri, CEO of Orbit Securities was quoted as saying early this week in Dar es Salaam. The price for each share in the IPO had been pegged at Tsh. 475 and buyers were expected to purchase a minimum of 200 shares. The listing of the Airline at the Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange would be on December 8.