MBABANE – Swaziland’s fledgling airline, Swazi Airways, has gone out of business without having achieved a single flight, according to its owner the Swaziland government.
The air carrier was supposed to have brought use to the new but largely underutilised King Mswati III International Airport (KM3).
“This confirms there is no market for air travel in Swaziland, either for passengers or air freight,” an Mbabane-based travel agent who preferred not to be identified told FTW.
The company made no announcement of its demise, which was not reported in the local press before official word came from an unlikely source, the Ministry of Labour and Social Security.
The company let go 495 employees between March and June 2017, and the dismissals as well as their cause, Swazi Airways’ end, were noted in the ministry’s second quarter performance report that was tabled before parliament on July 26.
The report indicated that the company’s staff had all undergone training, but were now looking for work elsewhere.
The company, wholly owned by the Swaziland government, was founded in 2013 with the royaltyreferencing motto “the majestic wings of Swaziland” and was based at KM3 airport.
After its dedication in March 2014 concern took hold that no new air passengers were arriving to defray the facility’s R3-billion construction and its daily operating costs.
The only airline servicing Swaziland, Swaziland Airlink, which flies to only one destination, Johannesburg, was relocated against its wishes to KM3 from the old Matsapha airport.
Government promised longhaul flights from Europe and the Middle East would bring a flood of tourists and investors, and planned to build a new city around KM3. A study found that international carriers had no reason to use KM3 because Swaziland was not a primary destination, and passengers would have to be taken to other regional destinations via a secondary airline as they might at Johannesburg’s nearby Oliver Tambo International Airport.
Government responded by reviving Royal Swaziland National Airways, which had stopped flying in 1999, as Swazi Airways.
A company board was appointed in September 2016 and mandated to establish air routes and purchase aircraft.
Despite several announcements, inaugural flights never made it off the ground. In the end the enormous expenditure of purchasing and maintaining aircraft may have proved too risky for government, because to date no international carrier is committed to using KM3.
INSERT
R3bn The construction costs of King Mswati III Int'l Airport.
