Civil Aviation Institute maintains LAM, SAA and TAP monopoly on most profitable air routes

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Civil Aviation Institute maintains LAM, SAA and TAP monopoly on most profitable air routes

12:51 CAT | 14 Sep 2017

The most profitable routes in Mozambique were not included in the tender launched by the Institute of Civil Aviation of Mozambique (IACM) in April of this year for the exploration of more than two hundred domestic, regional and intercontinental air routes.

These routes will continue to be monopolised by LAM, SAA and TAP.

In fact, A Verdade has found that, of the more than 100 regional and intercontinental routes made available, fewer than 50 attracted candidates, and realistically, scarcely more than a dozen will be effectively explored.

Under the bilateral air service agreements that Mozambique has signed with South Africa, Tanzania, Brazil, Singapore, Turkey, Ethiopia, United Arab Emirates, Malawi, Kenya, Mauritius, Botswana, Vietnam, Portugal, Qatar and France, airline companies registered in both countries can operate the available air routes.

Of the 109 regional and intercontinental routes in the April public tender, only 47, mostly to South Africa, Tanzania and Malawi, attracted applications.

The Maputo-Johannesburg route was not among the 28 routes made available, and will continue to be operated only by LAM and South Africa Airways (SAA). A civil aviation source revealed to @Verdade that the five daily flights on this route operationally cover losses on LAM’s domestic routes.

By a lapse

But IACM Board of Directors Chairman João de Abreu Martins told @Verdade that this route was not made available in the tender “by a lapse on the part of whoever inserted the advertisement”.

Other airlines, South African operators among them, have attempted to operate this route, but all have eventually fallen foul of the protectionism favouring LAM and SAA.

Until the company closed the Maputo – Johannesburg operation

Alexandre Carreira, head of Transport and Air Works (TTA), described to @ Verdade the persecution that the company faced when trying to operate the Maputo-Johannesburg route about two decades ago.

“On the eve of the commencement of our operation, a Friday, I was at the airport finalising preparations for the first flight, which was to take place on Monday, when I received an early afternoon call from the then IACM president. I went to the Institute and in the meeting room the leader told me that we could not fly to Johannesburg because we needed a certificate issued by South Africa.

“Fortunately, I had just received it and it was in the folder. The president of the IACM asked to take a photocopy, got up, went out to the next room supposedly to make the copy. He returned accompanied by journalists with television cameras, asked if I minded if they recorded, I said no. They filmed and photographed us, the president giving me back the certificate that I had loaned him. That night on the Mozambican Television news, the news was that TTA had been notified by the IACM that it was prevented from operating in Mozambique,” Carreira told us.

Added the experienced civil aviation manager, who hopes that this time the attitude of the Civil Aviation of Mozambique will be different: “We ended up starting the flights, and it was two months of martyrdom until we stopped.”

LAM cleared to fly to Vietnam, Botswana, Brasil, UAE, Turkey, Ethiopia and Qatar

Meanwhile, @Verdade learned that the Maputo – Lisbon – Maputo route, operated exclusively by the Portuguese Air Transport Company (TAP), was not made available in the tender.

No airline has applied for routes available to Mauritius and Singapore.

LAM, was the only carrier competing for the routes to Vietnam, Botswana, Brazil and the United Arab Emirates , and no airline has applied for routes to Mauritius and Singapore.

The national flag carrier already faces shortages of aircraft on its domestic routes, which continue to register many delays, and because it is technically bankrupt, LAM clearly does not have and probably will not in the medium term have the ability to fly to intercontinental destinations.

Even the routes to Turkey, Ethiopia and Qatar are operated only by the airlines of these countries, although LAM has competed and obtained the right to operate them.