Precision Air to extend wings abroad

Precision Air, a vibrant local private airline, envisages adding some international routes for it to realise its dream of becoming one of the biggest aviation companies in sub-Saharan Africa.  The airline will begin extending its wings  to most of the East African Community (EAC) and the Southern Africa Development Commission (SADC) member countries,  the airline’s chairman, Mr Michael Shirima, said.

The airline currently boasts of flying to Nairobi and Mombasa in Kenya and to Entebbe in Uganda daily in addition to 12 local destinations.

Mr Shirima said the routes would expand hand in hand with the beefing up of local ownership of the airline whose shares would in the near future be up for grab at the Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange (DSE).  He said the airline would see its local ownership rising to 66 per cent as opposed to the present local ownership of 51.  Mr Shirima said 15 per cent of the 49 per cent shares currently belonging to Kenya Airways would go to members of the public interested in investing in the airline with a promising future.   “The airline is proud of being among few  nascent African aviation firms operating  fleets of aircraft to provide safe, comfortable, fast and reliable aviation services,” he said. 

Precision Air dates back to 16 years ago when it acquired a five-seater charter plane, which was abandoned at the Julius Nyerere International Airport in Dar es Salaam for over a decade.  The airline had successfully repaired the charter plane to regain before it bought a second airworthy charter plane from another firm.  The firm has since then been tremendously growing to the extent of attracting a $129 million worth of a deal, which Precision Air signed with a French aircraft manufacturer,   Avions de Transport Régional - ATR,  in 2006 for the former to purchase seven aircrafts.     ATR has delivered five aircrafts and is expected to deliver the remaining two before the end of this year.

Precision Air, according to Mr Shirima, has so far employed 580 workers mostly being Tanzanians. Hardly one per cent of the airline workers currently are expatriates, he said.  The number of passengers and cargo too had tremendously been shooting  in tandem with the increasing number of destinations.  

    Precision Air is currently plying between Dar es Salaam and other local destinations namely Arusha, Kilimanjaro, Mwanza, Kigoma, Tabora, Musoma, Shinyanga and Mtwara regions.   Mr Shirima said the airline's marriage with Kenya Airways was compounded by the recent business trend in the airline industry, which called for  partnership, merger, code shares and alliances, citing Sky Team, Star and One World as typical examples.