Big airlines snub Ghana Airways

Big and established airlines in the world contacted to help salvage the ailing national airline, Ghana Airways, have shown no interest. They have developed cold feet as a result of the huge indebtedness of the airline. Currently, Ghana Airways is indebted to the tune of over 174 million dollars.

Ironically, the major airlines have rather made requests to government to increase the number of flights due to the huge Ghanaian market. Dr. Richard Anane, Minister of Roads and Transport disclosed these at a news conference in Accra on Thursday to address issues relating to the problems facing the debt-ridden Ghana Airways.

He said, "Alitalia, the Continental of the USA and South Africa Airlines were contacted but there were no fruitful yields. British Airways was not interested". Many other invitations, he said, to big and established airlines were not honoured because of the perception the aviation community had about the national airline.

Meanwhile, Dr Anane has disclosed that the government has short-listed, for consideration, a number of airline companies for a possible joint ventureship with Ghana Airways to help revamp the operations of the national airline.

The step is to salvage the airline from imminent collapse. Although he did not want to disclose the short-listed companies since that could be prejudicial and jeoparadize the outcome of on-going negotiations, he mentioned about eight firms and airlines the government negotiating team had already met.

They included African One Airline, The Nationwide Airline, Triatin of Switzerland, T & E Aviation of Lebanon, The Execujet of South Africa, S.A. Link of South Africa, The Africa Global (with Triatin and British Midland Airline) and The Africa Global (with British Midland Airline).

He explained that before the decision was taken, a diagnostic study on Ghana Airways was carried out of which three options and recommendation s were made. The options were either to go in for total liquidation, a total turn around or a joint venture. He said that considering the government's vision to create a sub-regional hub and consummate the gateway to West Africa Initiative, the joint venture option was chosen.

The sector Minister noted that after evaluating all available offers, the government concluded on accessing an existing airline and that any prospective partner should meet certain requirements.

Among the requirements, he said the prospective partner must have, or can access aircrafts of acceptable standards, provide acceptable under-wing and over-wing service standards, have capacity to train staff, especially cockpit and cabin crew to acceptable international standards, have reputable customer-service orientation and most importantly be traceable.