Eswatini Airways has announced that it got approval to operate the Zimbabwean route starting from the end of March 2023.
In a statement seen by Pindula News, the airline said it will also ply South African routes. Reads the statement issued on the 9th of February 2023:
Matsapha, Kingdom of Eswatini: Royal Eswatini National Airways Corporation (RENAC) would like to update stakeholders and the general public on the latest developments about Eswatini Air taking to the skies.
Since the approval of our Air Operator Certificate (AOC), several preparatory and post-AOC actions have been initiated. We have made tremendous progress in securing the necessary documentation to operate to the different destinations we will be flying to.
So far, we have received our Foreign Operator Permit (FOP) for Zimbabwe and the FOP for South Africa is in the process. We expect to have everything regarding that smoothed out very soon.
RENAC has also been assigned airline codes by the International Air Transport Association (IATA). The assigned IATA 2 letter code is RNwhile the IATA 3 digit accounting prefix is 507.
The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has also assigned codes used for airline identification when operating international flights. These codes are used for facilitating communication between the airline and Air Navigation Services Providers or Airspace Management agencies. The two codes applicable are SZL as the 3 letter designator, and Eswatini is the Telephony designator.
Following that, we applied for landing and departure slots at OR Tambo International, King Shaka International, Cape Town International in South Africa and at Robert Gabriel Mugabe (Harare) International Airport in Zimbabwe.
As soon as these outstanding matters are cleared, our systems will be updated and we will publish our schedules and pricing to allow us to commence trading and flying passengers to the different destinations.
At the present moment, we can’t set a definite date for our maiden flight as the turnaround time for the outstanding process is dependent on various factors beyond our control. We, however, envisage taking to the skies at the beginning of the next IATAseason, which is 26 March 2023.
Due to the work that still needs to happen in the background to ensure we operate at our optimum best, we have seen it fit to break our launch into three phases. We envisage starting with one destination and the two others will be added after an interim period of less than one month, with phase III whereby we add the fourth destination being the final stage. The exact dates for each phase and sequence of destinations will be announced as soon as the outstanding processes have been finalised.
While we finalise the processes, we have embarked on the recruitment of required personnel and training is underway for them to be ready by the launch date.
For enquiries: Manager: Marketing & Communication Royal Eswatini National Airways Corporation Ha Eswatini Air info@renac.co.sz