By Kudzayi Zvinavashe
Following years of aviation awareness in Zimbabwe offering unique aviation experience, educating school children to inspire tomorrow’s pilots. Diversifying into other aviation services including helicopter hiring for special events among others. Swiss Jet has announced a possibility of a city airline on the cards.
Speaking in an interview with Spiked News, Swiss Jet Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Captain Oscar Madombwe said, “the type of airline may not be what one thinks, one would think of huge airplanes flying to London but an airline can be one for example our version as a company ”
“We want to be able to provide a regular service for instance to Mutare and other neglected areas, the breakeven point of most airplanes is 50 percent so a 12 passenger airplane would be operating at a profit every time we fly with over 6 passengers on board and we are saying as a company we can surely get 6 passengers to Mutare” he said.
Captain Madombwe added this would not be an overnight achievement as it would take them a year to put things in place.
Swiss Jet has been actively involved in demystifying air transport as an elite mode of transport and is currently waiting on a license for the air line.
When asked to comment on the current state of aviation in Zimbabwe Captain Madombwe said it was neglected but it was getting better, “It needs a lot of effort to revive, there are a lot of areas that have been neglected, I do not know why and where the neglect is coming from, we have serious challenges as far as aviation is concerned perhaps things will get better as the authorities have decided the best way forward is to open up” he said.
The aviation trust has been persuasive in the making of a legislative that regulates drone technology, quite an exciting topic to Madombwe as it will make life easy since the technology enables flying for half the cost of flying using a helicopter.
Drone technology mainly known as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) will make it easy for farmers and miners among other people to monitor their property from an aerial point of view.
These can also be used in accessing a crisis situation which may be an accident scene in order to act accordingly in availing adequate aid.