TIME TO SAY FAREWELL TO AIR UGANDA. The airline massacre unleashed by the Uganda Civil Aviation Authority’s action of 17th of June this year, when in an act of unparalleled magnitude all international flights by Ugandan registered airlines were grounded to avoid being cited, named and shamed by ICAO over significant safety concerns and the apparent failure to address audit shortcomings from previous inspections by the global aviation regulatory body, has over the past 100 days cost the country dearly. Not only did travelers have to fork out at times twice the amount of money to get to their final destination, but had to suffer lost time too as transit through other regional hubs was the only way to get to such places like Juba, Bujumbura, Mogadishu, Dar es Salaam, Kilimanjaro and Mombasa. It took the hapless regulators in Entebbe weeks to fathom the strength of sentiment and anger building up against them, including demands for the top heads to roll, before they very slowly began to hand out fifth freedom rights to other airlines, one of them in fact not even IOSA certified – the global seal of approval for operational safety by IATA which Air Uganda had not only attained but also retained in a follow up audit – to begin fly nonstop again between Entebbe and Juba, a route previously served as many as three times a day by Air Uganda. While Fastjet is now operating four flights per week between Dar es Salaam and Entebbe, Precision Air inexplicably failed to capitalize on the grounding of codeshare partner Air Uganda and immediately re-launch their own flights, this is a far cry from the double daily flights operated by Uganda’s erstwhile quasi national airline. Nairobi remains underserved as the three daily flights by Air Uganda prior to that fateful 17th of June are now missing and no other airline has yet stepped into the breach, leaving the field exclusively to Kenya Airways which has used larger aircraft whenever possible and added more flights to keep the traffic flowing. The history of the UCAA’s reckless action has been described here in previous articles, which included graphs of ICAO audit shortcomings and legally questionably letters ordering the affected airlines, including U7, to immediately surrender their AOC at an instant’s notice without cause included. Those details too can easily be looked up here through the archives section. With literally all of the 231 staff of Air Uganda now gone, paid their terminal dues of course in full which speaks for the ethics of their company as an employer, and vital premises in the city and at the airport relinquished, it is now unlikely that the airline, in its present or another format, will return to the skies. Mission accomplished may some say who hatched instant conspiracy theories and not too farfetched perhaps, given the persistent talk of a senior politician, since fallen into disgrace, having lined up some aircraft to start an ‘indigenous’ airline which could perhaps take on the mantle as national carrier. Going by insider talk this individual was reportedly seen to intimately converse with some of the UCAA’s top brass – if on this issue or other topics of course cannot be established here though the long demanded Commission of Enquiry might throw light on it when individuals eventually have to testify under oath. Air Uganda had meanwhile gone through most of the re-certification process to get their AOC back and there are suggestions that the airline was pursuing this to its conclusion to prove that they are and always were fit to fly and that the muck thrown at them by UCAA’s nastiest mouthpieces who suggested the airline was unsafe was in fact just that, muck, bare of substance and an insult to the public’s ability to read between the lines and determine the truth themselves, seeing through the smokescreens the UCAA used to obscure the facts and hide their own actions. In a rare show of remorse did the UCAA even go as far as offer to have aircraft inspectors fly out at their own expense to look at aircraft – U7 had to surrender their leases under relevant clauses in the documents and the three CRJ200’s were returned to the lessors and parked in Paris – something unprecedented as the ‘Two Inspectors for Five Days’, tickets and per diems included at the expense of the airlines was literally a standing rule – so that stage 5 of the audit could be advanced and completed. Other regulators in the region, and in fact key staff of regulatory authorities known to this correspondent in Europe and America, confirmed that the UCAA had the absolute discretion to issue a ‘temporary AOC’ to have operations continue while a re certification under new rules was ongoing, but apparently opted against it as it would have kept the door open for ICAO to formally expose the audit failures. However, for Air Uganda to return to the skies would basically require investing a deep double digit million US Dollar amount once again, subject to the oversight and mercy of the same unpredictable hapless regulators which unleashed the emasculation on the airline in the first place, and there is growing indication that this will not happen. Sums are presently added up to determine the financial damages to the owners of Air Uganda – and other airlines for that matter affected by the UCAA’s catastrophically failed decisions – and legal strategies are being drawn up to establish a prima facie case against the UCAA for damages, collectively as well as individually against those who are suspected to have conspired to do what they did. Talk is of sums in excess of at least 20 and as much as 50 million US Dollars and should it come to that there will no doubt be hell to pay when the bills are presented. There is talk that government may wish to offer some compensation to the owners in order to maintain at least a shred of credibility vis a vis the protection of foreign investments, especially when destroyed by agencies gone bonkers. AKFED, through various companies and bodies, has investments in the country, including the Bujagali hydroelectric dam, Diamond Trust Bank, Jubilee Insurance, Serena Hotels and other companies worth in excess of several billion US Dollars and it is obvious, given other problems the country is facing on the international stage, that one does want to think twice before messing with such an investor. Meanwhile in Entebbe at the UCAA head office is according to one source close to the regulators a quiet exercise going on to prepare the ground, should in fact a legal case for damages be filed, to have some senior staff take the fall for the decisions taken and speculation is rife and rumors keep flying who will be hung out to dry, when the day of reckoning comes. What is left to say is that those responsible for bringing the curtain down on Air Uganda should face a full investigative process to establish if other reasons than to escape the ICAO citation were at play and whose interests such catastrophic decisions for the aviation industry in Uganda ultimately served. Many aviators and regular readers asked for names to be named but here in Uganda, the names of those in the glass and marble tower of the UCAA are known only too well. They have lost all respect of their peers, now walk under a cloud of suspicion and shame and as and when the sacks are delivered applause will rise, from many of the UCAA staff who have quietly expressed their disagreements with the actions taken by their bosses and from the public at large. It is a sad goodbye to Air Uganda and their many staff known in person to this correspondent as ‘The Wings of East Africa’ fly no more across our skies.
Posted on: Mon, 06 Oct 2014 12:00:00 +0000
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