RwandAir (WB, Kigali) and Ethiopian Airlines (ET, Addis Ababa International) have been granted 5th freedom traffic rights between Entebbe and Juba by the Ugandan Civil Aviation Authority (UCAA) just days after the country's largest international operator, Air Uganda (Entebbe), announced it was suspending operations indefinitely.
“We have had fruitful discussion and that is what we have always been looking at. We are setting aside a plane for that route as a way of accommodating the anticipated traffic. We are positive that this will be a great boost to both parties,” Ethiopian's Entebbe station manager, Abebe Angessa, told the New Vision newspaper.
The move to award the carriers the rights has been greeted with anger by the country's aviation sector which blames the UCAA's incompetence and lack of professionalism for failing its most recent International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO)-backed audit (Universal Safety Oversight Audit Programme - USOAP). In the wake of the results, the UCAA revoked the AOCs of all locally-based international operators - among them Uganda Air Cargo (UCC, Entebbe) and Transafrik International (TFK, Luanda 4 De Fevereiro) - forcing them to reapply.
In its defense, the UCAA has said the airlines in question were at fault claiming the revocation of their AOCs was warranted on the grounds that each had allegedly suffered from safety oversights and shortcomings.
