Air Zimbabwe flies three passengers on Dubai route

By Lance Guma
16 September 2005

The Zimbabwe Independent reports that national airline Air Zimbabwe flew only three passengers on its Bangkok- Dubai route on the 2nd of September using a 245 seater plane. This apparently happened on the same day a flight to Bangkok from Beijing was cancelled because there were no passengers from the Chinese capital to Thailand.

Fortunately for the airline it later managed to collect 80 passengers from Dubai to Harare, the second part of the same route. Previous attempts to service the Bangkok to Dubai route have failed due to low passenger numbers and it came as a surprise that the airline tried again. The newspaper reports that the three passengers on the flight exceeded their luggage allowance and the airline wanted to charge them for the surplus despite a near empty plane.

Even passengers with economy tickets were told to they could not take up free seating in business class. This was later reversed after sustained protests. Air Zimbabwe is stuck in a deal with Air Thailand where it is leasing a Boeing 767 costing US$2 million over three months. The servicing of the Bangkok route is seen as one of the leasing conditions.