CASH-STRAPPED Air Zimbabwe has begun the hunt for a managing director to spearhead the turnaround of the airline.
Business Reporter
Until now, acting chief executive officer Innocent Mavhunga has been steering the national airline.
The managing director will among other things oversee the turnaround of the national airline through the provision of strategic direction, co-ordinating the company’s business activities by ensuring it is run in a profitable and professional manner.
Other roles include developing a customer-centric culture that would restore confidence to customers and stakeholders, establishing a strong corporate governance culture and instilling a performance culture in the organisation.
Air Zim, which is currently reeling under a $180 million debt, has also been struggling to pay salaries.
The company also plans to pursue a retrenchment exercise that could result in more than half of its estimated 900 employees retrenched.
The hunt for a new boss follows the recent appointment of a new board led by banker Ozias Bvute.
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Other board members include Gabriel Mugabe, Michael Hove, Farai Chikono, Laura Gwatiringa, Captain Alex Makanda and Locadia Majonga.
Bvute early this month told a Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on State Enterprises and Parastatals the national airline planned to resume international flights to London in July this year after beefing up its fleet as part of its turnaround strategy.
“We have looked at route viability and we have identified the short-term routes that we think we want to concentrate on and ensure that those routes are managed and serviced properly for the benefit of our travelling partners,” Bvute said.
“We would like to systematically work on introducing routes as we perfect our service on the ones we have so far, increase Harare-Bulawayo–Victoria Falls and Harare-Johannesburg. On July 1, we would like to return to the Harare-London route and to be reinstated twice a week.”
In order to ease the load on the Boeing 737 flying on the Bulawayo-Victoria Falls, route Bvute said a team of Chinese engineers was in the country to repair one of the MA60 planes to service domestic routes. The airliner also announced plans to acquire Embraer planes to service regional routes.
