10 Apr 2019

Minister of Transport and Communications, Ms Dorcas Makgato has told Parliament on April 9 about re-fleeting project aimed at improving efficiency and capacity of Air Botswana, which she said had resulted in acquisition of two new turbo propeller ATR 72-600s and Embraer 170 jet.

She said the acquisition of the equipment had been done, but the entry into service for the jet had been delayed. 

Ms Makgato said this was due in part to the protracted licensing and certification process for the jet to operate in Botswana airspace by both Air Botswana and Civil Aviation Authority of Botswana (CAAB).

As a result of the acquisition of the jet, some of the airline’s crew were converted to fly the jet and training for their replacements initiated.

Ms Makgato said conversion was done earlier because the jet was anticipated to arrive first, but it was delayed. 

She said training of replacement crew for the ATR’s pilots was currently taking place in France. 

She said this had resulted in limited crew and aircraft availability with the remaining resources having to cover for routes that were expected to be covered by the jet. 

Ms Makgato said to mitigate challenges, the airline had been operating on a tight and very sensitive schedule, which was easily upset by any delays, causing compression of schedules, last minute cancellation and delayed departure times, further placing a strain on the already limited crew hours.

Minister Makgato noted that the airline was working closely with CAAB and the ministry to finalise approvals for the jet, which would be deployed on some of the routes, thereby relieving the schedules. 

She said it was expected that the exercise would be completed before end of this month.

She was responding to a question from MP for Nkange, Mr Edwin Batshu, who had asked the minister to give a detailed account for the delay of the daily Air Botswana flight, which caused extreme inconveniences to the travelling public, both nationally and internationally and when the situation would be normalised. ENDS