Mozambique: Flag carrier LAM launches tender to contract Embraer ERJ190, Boeing 737-700 aircraft

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Mozambique: Flag carrier LAM launches tender to contract Embraer ERJ190, Boeing 737-700 aircraft

2:02 CAT | 31 Jan 2025

FILE - For illustration purposes only. [File photo: Lusa]

Mozambique’s national flag carrier, Linhas Aéreas de Moçambique (LAM), on Friday launched a procedure for the contracting of Embraer ERJ190 and Boeing 737-700 aircraft, according to an official notice consulted by the Lusa news agency.

The tender involves the submission of expressions of interest for the supply of aircraft, of these two models, by national or foreign companies or consortia and is to run until 7 February.

A source from the airline explained to Lusa that the procedure does not, at this stage, specify the number of aircraft to be contracted, and that the decision will depend on the proposals submitted in this tender.

LAM operates 12 destinations on the domestic market; at regional level it flies regularly to Johannesburg, Dar es Salaam, Harare, Lusaka and Cape Town, while Lisbon is the only intercontinental destination. The company has faced successive operational problems.

Meanwhile, last week LAM chose Marcelino Gildo Alberto as executive chairman, the third person to lead the airline in little over 11 months.

According to a statement from LAM, the decision was taken at the company’s extraordinary general meeting and came into effect on 22 January, as did the departure of Américo Muchanga, who had led the airline since July 2024, but who has since been sworn in as the new minister of communications and digital transformation.

Muchanga had replaced Theunis Crous, from Fly Modern Ark (FMA), the South African company hired to recover LAM. From February to July 2024, the South African held the position of director-general of LAM on an interim basis – until then chairman of the board was a non-executive position, but this has since been changed.

Marcelino Gildo Alberto previously held the position of chairman of the board of directors of state-owned electricity company Eletricidade de Moçambique (EDM), but was dismissed in July 2024.

The contract between FMA and LAM ended on 12 September 2024, after being in force since April 2023, when the South African company was called in to implement a strategy to revitalise the company after years of operational problems related to a reduced fleet and lack of investment. It had a record of some incidents, not fatal, associated by experts with inefficient aircraft maintenance.

Meanwhile, the company this month returned a Boeing 737-300 cargo plane to Indonesia after a year without operating it, due to the lack of national certification and recognition by the manufacturer of modifications to the aircraft, the aviation regulator previously confirmed.

“It was found that not all the documents required for this type of certification were complete,” said the chairman of the board of the Civil Aviation Institute of Mozambique (IACM), the regulatory authority for the sector, João de Abreu.

The return of the Boeing 737-300 cargo plane to Indonesia was confirmed in a press release by Linhas Aéreas de Moçambique (LAM) on the grounds that it “did not have national certification” with the clarification that it had been in Mozambique from 31 December 2023 to 18 January 2025.

João de Abreu explained that the cargo aircraft never operated in Mozambique due to the lack of national certification, and that it had been modified from a passenger aircraft to a cargo aircraft without the due knowledge of the manufacturer, who was also not notified.

Source: Lusa