Large African airline to operate domestic flights in Mozambique

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Large African airline to operate domestic flights in Mozambique

12:17 CAT | 07 Mar 2018

Sapo (File photo)

A major African airline is expected to start domestic flights in Mozambique as early as April, a tourism official in Mozambique said yesterday, while declining to identify the company in question.

“The entry of this African airline into Mozambique, one of the largest in Africa with more than 100 aircraft, will increase the supply of domestic flights, lowering prices by half,” Noor Momade, president of the Association of Agents of Travel and Tour Operators of Mozambique (Avitum), revealed on the sidelines of Destination Mozambique seminar in Lisbon, Portugal, yesterday.

“This airline’s operations are due to start in April,” Momade said, maintaining that it was not yet possible to name the company, but that it was certain to start operating in Mozambique.

Momade also said that the government had been able to respond to various problems in the tourism sector, particularly security, visas and air transportation.

“The president has engaged, called us, talked with us and asked why tourism was not developing. When we presented the issues, to our surprise, after a little more than a year, he solved all our problems,” the Avitum chairman said.

Tourism was one of the pillars that the president has determined for governance, Momade stressed. “There is a lot still to be done, particularly in the infrastructure and staffing sectors, but we have made great strides,” he said.

The Avitum chairman also said that a cooperation protocol covering exchange of experiences would soon be signed with the Portuguese Association of Travel and Tourism Agencies (Apavt).

Speaking at the seminar, Mozambican Minister of Culture and Tourism Silva Dunduro said that effective peace in Mozambique was the ‘sine qua non’ of boosting Mozambique’s economy in general, and tourism in particular.

“We have done everything to overcome the difficulties, we are now in a process led by the head of state for effective peace in Mozambique, the numbers indicate that this is the way,” said Silva Dunduro.

“It is safe to invest in Mozambique; we are in a process of implementing lasting peace,” he said, stressing that “guns will stop once and for all.”

The minister and a Mozambican delegation went to Portugal to participate in the BTL Lisbon Tourism Exchange, which ended on Sunday.

Source: Lusa