Cloudy Skies

The rainy season in Zambia seems to have come to an end, and the dark clouds bearing rain up in the skies, have transformed into dark clouds bearing the local incoming winter.

This strange weather pattern has removed the warm days that come right after the rainy season, and brought in the cold well before its due date, which is usually at the end of May. Zambia has therefore remained with cloudy skies from the last quarter of 2009 right through into the second quarter of 2010. Can it get worse?

Europe is plagued with its own dimension of cloudy skies as the eruption of the volcano in Iceland spews its infernal rock and mineral guts in the form of a fine dust into the atmosphere. These clouds of ash have formed into treacherous lairs that have clogged the European skies and lay in wait to ambush and choke any airplane engine that might hazard a close encounter.

The two latest incidents of airplanes being brought down by volcanic ash clouds were experienced in the 1982 and in 1989. In both cases the airplanes were forced to conduct an emergency landing because the engines were shut down and the aircraft would otherwise crash.

The 1982 incident involved a Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet that flew through a volcanic ash cloud which was formed as a result of the eruption of Mount Galunggung in Indonesia. All four engines failed, and much later outside the ash cloud, they were restarted with one engine failing once again, but the aircraft was diverted off its original course and safely landed in Jarkata.

The 1989 almost brand new Boeing 747 en route to Tokyo, Japan suffered failure of all four engines when it flew through a thick cloud of volcanic ash which was earlier spewed by Mount Redoubt in Alaska. Similarly, the crew anxiously grappled with the engines to restart them and take the aircraft down safely.

The airline industry has just emerged out a global recession and until the Iceland volcano ash clouds appeared in the skies, there was optimism that business would grow in the face of an unfolding World Cup in South Africa, and the expected increase in both passenger traffic as well as cargo during 2010.

Instead, Europe and the rest of world have been hit by a disruption of traffic in the order of about 1.2 million passengers per day resulting in daily revenue losses of about USD400 million. In addition, Iceland stands right in the path of intercontinental air traffic between Europe and North America.

The greatest impact of air traffic disruptions therefore have been on flights between Europe and North America, on flights within Europe, and on flights in and out of Europe.

These kinds of losses begin to stress the patience of big businesses such as the airline industry. Choices between erring on the side of too much passenger safety considerations which may lead to possibly dragging the airline industry into bankruptcy, and risking calculated flight schedules with strong monitoring and evaluation precautionary processes to test the effects and implications of flying through the Iceland volcano ash clouds whilst keeping the airline business sustainably productive, are tough life or death choices that affect both passengers and businesses. Only time will tell which will have been the right way to go.

Unfortunately Zambia and the sub continent are not immune to the effects of the ash filled cloudy skies of Europe. The World Cup 2010 is just around the corner and any disruptions to passenger traffic in Europe will result in disruptions in passenger traffic to Southern Africa.

The backlog of passengers on waiting lists in Europe will have to be cleared. Some passengers will have spent too much money resolving travel arrangements which were disrupted by the ash clouds and will not enough resources left over to spend in Southern Africa during the soccer extravaganza.

Shall we now receive fewer visitors than expected before this cloudy skies saga? Will there be adequate airplanes to fly visitors to Southern Africa? or will we see more efforts being focused on normalizing the flow of air traffic in Europe and North America? Will air fare prices remain the same as before the cloudy skies? or will they be increased to make up for the losses?

Currently Zambia and other countries in the region are looking to do some last ditch efforts to suck in the World Cup visitors to our various tourist sites and attractions.

Last month’s Lusaka Tourism Expo witnessed a new airline from the region open its doors in Zambia offering several flights a week from Joburg to Ndola, Lusaka, and Livingstone.

Our own cloudy skies policy may have to be challenged at a time when un-usual circumstances demand un-usual solutions.

What opportunities are there for our regulators of the skies to entice the current airlines to introduce more flights a week? Is there a way that we can have the airlines into Zambia upgrade their aircraft to larger passenger carrying models as a way to increase the entry rate of tourists? Can we open up more options for international flights into Lusaka, Ndola, Livingstone and Mfuwe? What packages can we offer to the 2010 tourist in the non traditional tourist cities of Lusaka and Ndola?

Currently Zimbabwe’s Vic Falls town flies in fifty percent more tourists from South Africa than Livingstone does. This has been achieved by simply persuading the South African carrier to operate larger passenger carrying capacity aircraft.

The cloudy skies in Zambia can be turned into sunny and happy skies filled with tourists, only if we take the right action at the right time. And the time is now.

The choices to be made by Zambia and Europe in respect to the cloudy skies are similar. Europe is looking for ways to re-populate their skies with aircraft filled with passengers and cargo.

Similarly, Zambia needs to find innovative ways to populate her skies with aircraft and passengers destined for Zambia’s tourist and business destinations.

The difference is that if Europe makes the wrong choices passengers may indeed fall out of the skies, whereas for Zambia, if we make the wrong choices tourists will definitely not come out of our skies.

Published 27 April 2010