According to recent reports in East African Business Week, in spite of a global financial crisis the upcoming airline in the Tanzania transport sector, Precision Air, is expected to see a 25–30 percent increase in the external flights that are offered by the airline and will also likely double the availability of its domestic routes in the year 2009.
In an interview with the East African Business Week, Precision Air’s Chief Executive Officer, Alfonse Kioko, said the reason for the airlines success in the face of this financial crisis is its policy to consistently operate efficiently while continuing to minimize costs.
With this in mind, Precision Air recently lowered its fares by 15% as an incentive to its customers for the Christmas and New Year holiday season.
The recent increase in the flight offerings and availability of the airline is due, in part, to additional funding for existing projects as well as the initiation of several new routes, including one from Dar es Salaam to Johannesburg, one from Dar es Salaam to Zanzibar and Mombasa and one from Dar es Salaam to Nairobi.
In addition to this, the increase availability is also partially due to an apparent ride in demand as statistics have shown that traffic has grown by approximately 14 percent for the past three months.
These statistics indicate that the traffic from last year at this time has grown from 119,040 in September, October and November 2007 to 135,844 in September, October, and November this year.
According to Mr. Kioko, the Precision Air is also looking to increase the frequency of its flights.
“We are looking for three times daily routes, but currently operating at a minimum of two routes per day,” said Kioko.
Mr. Kioko went on to say that Precision Air is expecting to increase the frequency of its flight from Dar es Salaam to Zanzibar and Mombasa from four times daily to six times daily and hopes to do the same for its flights from Dar es Salaam to Arusha.
Yhe airline also plans to increase its flights from Dar es Salaam to Mwanza from two times a day to three times a day.
In addition, the head of Networking Planning and Strategy for Precision Air, Patrick Ndekana has also said that next year the airline will begin to fly to the towns of Iringa and Songea while the Songea-Mbeya route is in pipeline.
