By Staff Reporter
In preparation for the re-opening of the skies, Civil Aviation Authority of Zimbabwe (CAAZ) has installed sanitizer booths at Zimbabwe’s three major international airports.
Zimbabwe closed its airspace, for both domestic and international passenger flights in March, as part of measures to curb the spread of COVID-19 pandemic.
CAAZ Public Relations and Communications Manager, Anna Julia Hungwe told the Harare Post that the setting up of sanitizer booths had been completed at Victoria Falls, Joshua Nkomo and Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airports.
“We are going by the ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) standards as we move into the new normal. This (sanitizer booths) is now best practice. It will give airlines confidence as they choose destinations to go to,” she said.
Hungwe said the three booths were installed at a cost of ZWL$1.4 million.
“All materials for the sanitizer booths were locally sourced,” she said. Adding that, “the re-opening of the airspace for passenger flights was dependent on the global pandemic situation.”
AirZim has come up with a post COVID-19 masterplan, which is primarily drawn from its overall Strategic Turnaround Plan (STP) and anchored on domestic and regional network and it will revolve around four key pillars.
These include deployment of narrow bodied equipment on traditional routes as well as new routes and development of a hub with Harare as the main hub into the region such as Dar-es-Salaam, Kinshasa, Lusaka, Lubumbashi, Johannesburg, Dubai among others.
On the other hand, Victoria Falls will be the tourism hub, linking key domestic destinations such as Matopos, Hwange, Kariba and Buffalo Range to places like Cape Town in South Africa, Maun in Botswana and Windhoek in Namibia among other regional destinations.
The others pillar is reintroducing increased frequencies on domestic flights to offer daily morning and evening services to Bulawayo and Victoria Falls thereby bringing the much needed convenience to business and tourist day trippers.
The Civil Aviation Authority of Zimbabwe (CAAZ) is mandated to support safe, regular and efficient use and development of aviation services around Zimbabwe, as well as advise the government about domestic and international aviation applications.
