The national airline in
Swaziland that was created with fanfares and claims it would serve routes
across Africa has closed down and all 23 employees have been retrenched.
Confirmation of the closure
and staff redundancies came through the Ministry of Labour and
Social Security First Quarter (April to June 2017) Performance report,
which was tabled in the House of Assembly.
The airline closed for business in April 2017 when it
became clear the tiny kingdom could not afford a single aircraft.
Even so, E20 million had been spent on leasing a
29-year-old Boeing 737-300 that never once flew commercially. In addition, an
estimated E750,000 a month was paid to airline staff who had no work to do.
Swazi Airways was intended to replace the already
defunct Royal Swaziland National Airways. The plan to launch the new airline
came after the opening of King Mswati III (KM3) Airport. The airport, built in
the wilderness in southeast Swaziland about 70 km from a major city, was the
brainchild of the King, who rules Swaziland as sub-Saharan Africa’s last
absolute monarch.
The airport that was originally named Sikhuphe was
dubbed a “white elephant” and “vanity project” by critics outside the kingdom.
The cost of building the airport will never be known, but estimates are that it
cost at least E300 million.
The airport officially
opened in March 2014 and since then the only passenger-carrying
airline to use it has been Swazi Airlink, which is part-owned by the Swazi Government.
Despite repeated promises from the Swaziland Civil Aviation Authority (SWACAA)
that there was interest from major international airlines to fly into KM3, none
have down so.
In December 2015, the Sunday Observer, a newspaper in
effect owned by King Mswati, and described by the Media Institute of Southern
Africa in a review on media freedom in the kingdom, as a ‘pure propaganda machine for the royal
family’ reported, that Swazi Airways would fly to 10 countries once it had become fully
operational. The destinations were the
United Arab Emirates, Kenya, Ethiopia, Zambia, Rwanda, South Africa, Namibia,
Tanzania, Uganda and Botswana.
At the end of March 2017 it became clear that the
kingdom could not afford the airline. Swazi Airways decided to drop its lease
on the Boeing, but was left with a E6 million debt to the company that leased
it.
See also
PROOF: KING’S AIRPORT POINTLESS
AIRLINK
FORCED TO USE KING’S AIRPORT
AIRPORT
MOVE WILL ‘BANKRUPT AIRLINK’
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