Mozambique: New chairperson for LAM

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Mozambique: New chairperson for LAM

5:47 CAT | 23 Jan 2025

Image: O País

An extraordinary meeting of shareholders of Mozambique Airlines (LAM) on Wednesday appointed Marcelino Gildo Alberto as the public company’s new chairperson.

He replaces Americo Muchanga, whom President Daniel Chapo appointed last week as Minister of Communications and Digital Transformation.

Alberto began his career in the publicly owned electricity company, EDM, where he rose to become chairperson of the board, a position he held from 2020 until July 2024.

He is taking over at LAM, just as the company is facing a major scandal. It announced on Tuesday that it has been obliged to return its most recently acquired aircraft, a Boeing B737-300, due to the lack of certification of this cargo plane to operate on Mozambican soil, the company announced on Tuesday.

READ: Mozambique: LAM returns cargo plane’ to its place of origin’ after failing to obtain certification – Notícias

According to a LAM release, “the aircraft in question has been in Mozambique since 31 December 2023 , and took off from Maputo International Airport on 18 January 2025, flying to Jacarta, in Indonesia”.

LAM is reported to have spent three million US dollars on the operation to bring the aircraft, which can carry 17 tonnes of cargo, from Indonesia to Maputo. It spent a further 930,000 dollars on hiring the plane. The aircraft remained in Mozambique and made no flights at all.

When the plane landed in the country, LAM said that its operations would begin in March 2024. At the time the management of LAM had been subcontracted to the South African company Fly Modern Ark, which claimed that cargo transport was a highly profitable business and that regular cargo flights would help solve LAM’s financial problems.

But LAM never dealt with the paperwork which would have allowed the Mozambican Civil Aviation Authority (IACM) to certify the aircraft. Without certification, the plane was grounded.

Furthermore, the plane had originally been designed to carry passengers. It was modified to carry cargo, but the manufacturer, Boeing, did not guarantee these modifications.

So the plane has been kept in a hangar at Maputo airport for about a year, paying the Indonesian owner 93,000 dollars a month, and operating no flights at all. The total cost to LAM of this aircraft seems to be around four million dollars.

Source: AIM