TWO NEW AIRCRAFT TO SERVICE 4 REGIONAL ROUTES FROM JUNE

SIKHUPHE – The two recently purchased planes by government through Royal Eswatini National Airways Corporation (RENAC) will from early June start servicing four regional routes, encompassing South Africa and Zimbabwe.

The South African routes are King Shaka International Airport in Durban, Cape Town International Airport and O.R Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg, together with Harare International Airport in Zimbabwe. Yesterday, the first plane landed at the King Mswati III International Airport at around 10:15am from O.R Tambo International Airport in South Africa.
Both planes were bought from Hop, a subsidiary of Air France for a combined price of E47.43 million.

One of the two planes, an EDC-EAA, 50 seater worth E24 million, has a half lifeline of 30 000 hours that will last its flight expectancy life for 15-20 years. Representing His Majesty King Mswati III during the welcoming function hosted inside a marquee at the airport’s premises was Prince Hlangabeza. Present were Minister of Finance Neal Rijkenberg, that of Public Works and Transport Chief Ndlaluhlaza Ndwandwe and Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Thuli Dladla.

Analysis

RENAC CEO Qiniso Dhlamini, said their market analysis showed that in the next two to three years, the aircraft will realise profits in these routes as most of the travellers would opt to book directly to the country from Cape Town, O. R Tambo, Durban and Harare from their overseas trips. He said they had established that the four routes had travellers who used them to connect through their airlines from overseas and reach the country by road. Dhlamini said they discovered that many of the tourists who entered the country were from overseas, who had either connected from O.R Tambo International Airport and jetted into the country at the King Mswati III International. He said some jetted into SA via Durban and then used the Lavumisa Border.

“The numbers according to our marketing analysis show that more tourists and investors will opt to directly book our aircraft when coming into the country for safe travelling and accessibility,” he said. Dhlamini said the chosen destinations had a potential to lure more tourists and investors and had the capacity to grow once the aircraft had been marketed using the available social medial platforms and websites.

The CEO further stated that their pricing would be different and affordable in breaking the market space, considering that travellers would prefer direct flights than connecting flights to reach their destinations. He added that currently, they were looking at the volatile political situation due to the unstable fuel costs with the ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia.
He elaborated that pricing of the airfares would be made available mid next month as currently they were still at an advanced stage of certification of the flights in these regional routes.
“We are finalising the certification logistics, but operations will start late May or early June. Once we have finalised the certification, we will then do our pricing around mid-April. The airfares will be announced by the marketing department once we have monitored the situation, especially on the ongoing war as pricing will be determined by the fuel costs,” added Dhlamini.

The CEO had been asked if his organisation had done a feasibility study to ascertain if the planes would make good business sense for the country. He had also been asked about the projected income in the first year of their operation, of which he declined to unpack the figures involved, citing that it could raise unnecessary debate and impression. Furthermore, the CEO said once the planes realised profits and an increase in the demand in bookings of the aircraft in the region, his organisation would then focus on expanding its routes in the North and East Africa.

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