When you fly on the Ethiopian Airlines, the pilot will simply take off and just 25 seconds after takeoff, the bells ring and it means one can undo the safety belts and you can see the pilot coming from the cockpit to sit and have tea with passengers. It will be on auto-pilot. None of the aircraft at Air Zimbabwe can be on auto-pilot. One day we flew from Harare to the Budget Seminar in Victoria Falls and all the way, there was a hissing sound coming from the door and one of the ladies said it was because the door could not be closed properly. However, the pressure in an aeroplane is pressurised and if there is outside air interfering with what is inside, it will go down. Mr. Speaker Sir, what it means is that your Members of Parliament, about 120 of them could have gone down. On the way back from Victoria Falls, I boarded a bus, I could not fly with Air Zimbabwe because I have a family to look after, I do not want to die – [HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.] –
Mr. Speaker Sir, Hon. Mliswa spoke about money being injected into Air Zimbabwe. In 2010, US$300 million was injected into Air Zimbabwe with 28 directors and 800 employees manning three aeroplanes. That money went down the drain and it is now housed with this outfit called Zimbabwe Asset Management Company. The reason why that debt was taken out of Air Zimbabwe is because Hon. Chinamasa was trying to clean the Air Zimbabwe Balance Sheet so that it could attract investors because you cannot attract investors if your balance sheet is in such shambles.
However, if you look at Air Zimbabwe today, it is already in the red. The business model of Air Zimbabwe Hon. Minister – I sympathise with you, you are such a good person. However, the way you are tying to do it with Air Zimbabwe will not work until the second coming of Jesus. Jesus will have to come for the second time or the third time, but Air Zimbabwe will remain unprofitable.
Now, here is my solution to Air Zimbabwe. Mr. Speaker Sir, employ the right people – [HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.] – it does not really matter if the person is good looking, dresses well and it does not matter who they are related to. They must have the qualifications of running an air line. I do not know where this notion came from that if somebody is a trained pilot, they can run an airline, it does not follow. You can be the best pilot in the world and fail to run an airline. Mr. Speaker Sir, it is like somebody who was once a soccer star of the year – for example George Shaya was a soccer star of the year five times, but it does not make him a good coach. You can get someone like Charles Mhlauri who only played division two soccer but he took Zimbabwe to Tunisia form Africa Cup of Nations. So, Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Minister must get good people to run Air Zimbabwe. Commercialization, yes, but it is not the panacea. The business model they are using at Air Zimbabwe is a 1976 Ian Smith business model; it does not work in 2017. We are now computerised. There were no computers in 1976.
When you want to fly on South African Airways, all you need to do is go to your cell phone, make a booking on line, get an e-ticket and you walk to the airport. You just tell them your name and you get a boarding pass. However, Air Zimbabwe today, I can write a boarding pass at my house and go and board Air Zimbabwe – how do they know that this person has not booked with them when they are not on line. I can actually sell counterfeit tickets for Air Zimbabwe, give people boarding passes and they can go and fly because Air Zimbabwe is not online. A person can argue their case saying no, I got this ticket from your Harare office and they will fly because Air Zimbabwe is not online. What happens at the Harare office is not known at the airport because the two are not interlinked.
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