Zimbabwe

Fuel Shortage Hits Airlines

The Zimbabwe Standard (Harare) March 12, 2000 By Staff Writer

Harare - South African Airline flight number SAA 022 which flew from Johannesburg to Harare on Tuesday was delayed for about an hour at Jan Smuts Airport, as there was no guarantee that Zimbabwe would be able to supply Jet A1 fuel to international flights.

The flight, which was supposed to have left Johannesburg at 10.45am, was told before take off that if it flew to Zimbabwe without reserve fuel, it would not fly back to South Africa since there was a critical shortage of Jet A1 fuel.

Passengers were informed about the delay after they had boarded the plane, ready to be flown to Harare.

"What the hell is going on in Zimbabwe?" asked one irrate passenger after the pilot had announced the delay.

Aviation industry executives said yesterday Zimbabwe was in danger of being shut out since planes landing in the country were not guaranteed of getting the much needed aviation fuel.

Although there was no comment from the National Oil Company of Zimbabwe, authoritative sources said the situation was now critical, and if nothing was done in the next few days, planes coming to Zimbabwe would be forced to re- route to South Africa where there was enough aviation fuel supply.

"This is going to be expensive for the airlines to be forced to refuel in South Africa.

It means that there won't be direct flights from other destinations to Harare," said one executive in the fuel sector who requested to remain anonymous.

It also emerged yesterday that several fuel stations throughout the country had stopped operating due to the non-availability of fuel.

Confirming the closure of several fuel filling stations, the chairman of the fuel section of the Motor Trade Association, Clive Puzey, said: "We are operating at 20% of our normal operating capacity. Some of the stations have already closed down."

Puzey said workers were to be retrenched in the sector since there was no business.

He said last night that if the situation did not improve by the end of the month, more filling stations were going to be closed.

However, Puzey said he did not have the figures regarding the number of jobs that have been lost due to the critical shortage of fuel. But he warned that more people were going to lose their jobs in the sector if the current fuel problem was not addressed urgently.

http://www.africanews.org/south/zimbabwe/stories/20000312/20000312_feat4.html

-- - (x@xxx.com), March 14, 2000

Answers

Hmmm....So, the real headline should have been:

One airline hit by possible fuel shortage in Zimbabwe.

A little different spin, dontcha think?

-- Jim Cooke (JJCooke@yahoo.com), March 14, 2000.

"Aviation industry executives said yesterday Zimbabwe was in danger of being shut out since planes landing in the country were not guaranteed of getting the much needed aviation fuel."

Yep, sounds like there will be more than ONE.

-- Tommy Rogers (Been there@Just a Thought.com), March 14, 2000.

And how many international airlines fly to Zimbabwe? Is this something that we should worry about?

-- Jim Cooke (JJCooke@yahoo.com), March 15, 2000.