After waiting for over 20 years, today marks the resurrection of the Uganda Airlines with the arrival of the first two of a four bombardier CRJ900 jet consignment worth over Shs 700 billion from Canadian Jet manufacturer Bombardier Commercial Aircraft.

The planes that touched down Entebbe airport, officially received by President Yoweri Museveni and First Lady; Janet Kataha  Museveni, are expected to start operating after over 90 days as certification.

President Museveni heaped praise on parliament for enabling the birth of the new baby, saying parliament has been doing well of late;

Museveni also noted that one of the reasons that drove him to have the ‘new baby’  is the unfair treatment of Ugandans by other regional airlines, whereby among other forms of segregation Ugandans were paying higher prices than the citizens of the countries that owned the respective airlines.

12 pilots and 12 co-pilots, all Ugandan, have been trained and certified.

The planes will operate on regional routes that will include Nairobi, Dar-es-salaam, Mombasa, Juba, Khartoum, Kigali, Johannesburg, Addis ababa, Harare, Lubumbashi among others.

Two Airbuses are also expected in 2020 and these will be used to ply international routes.

Plans to revive Uganda airlines started in 2003. Uganda Airlines Corporation started operations in 1977 and was liquidated in May 2001 after years of making losses.

At the time of its closure, the national airline had endured a number of challenges, among which was the constant aircraft breakdowns and high fuel costs. Eng. Dickson Turinawe, who worked with the Uganda Airlines for 22 years in several management positions until its closure, explains that in airline operations, fuel constitutes 25% to 36% of the total costs.

However, for the Uganda Airlines, given its aged fleet, the average figure was 40%.

It is for this and more, that the team behind the revival of the Uganda National Airline has opted for new aircrafts. According to the National Business Airline Implementation Plan(NBAIP), a document that presents a fully detailed case and final review of the viability of establishing a national airline with a hub at Entebbe International Airport, newer aircraft are more fuel-efficient compared to the old ones and benefit from technological advances that lower the fuel burn.

Various partnerships are also being discussed to enable smooth flow to different routes both within and outside.

As more jets come in, there will be a very busy schedule at the Entebbe international airport but do we have the capacity to manage the situation and expectation?

Vianney Lugya, the spokesperson of the Civil Aviation Authority explained that the airport has the capacity to handle the upsurge in flights.

He pointed to the 2017 CHOGM that saw construction of parking Apron 4 which has capacity of up to 60 medium sized aircrafts.

Entebbe international airport has had a steady traffic growth of 7.9% annually. In 2018, the airport handled 1.84 million international passengers a rise from 1.65 million passengers in 2017.

The traffic flow means that the airport handled an average of 5,027 passengers and 81 aircrafts per day last year.

“By the end of 1st phase which runs 2016 – 2021,we anticipate to handle a minimum of 3.5 million international passengers per year,” Lugya said.

As the excitement over the jets rises, affordability of the tickets comes to mind putting into consideration the operational and maintenance costs needed to keep the airline afloat.

However ministry of works assures of affordable competitive rates compared to the other operators.

Kataike said Ugandans should not be worried about when the airline will break-even but embrace and support it.

She said that since this project is one of the flagships programs on the NRM manifesto, they will do all it takes to keep the airline afloat whether it requires government’s subsidisation until the airline turns in a profit making venture.

To many now, the focus is on the management of the airline with questions of how it will insulate itself from repeating the past mistakes that saw the dissolution of the airline in 2001.

Uganda Airlines isn’t the only airline expected to hit the turf at the Entebbe international airport this year.

CAA revealed they are in talks with German airlines including Condor which is expected to commence operations in September 2019.