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Civil Aviation Authority: New airlines interest intensifies

Direct News Source

18-Mar-2010 A total of 12 international and local airlines have shown interest to operate new airline routes to and from Botswana.

According at the Civil Aviation Authority acting public relations manager, Ms Gaobaone Kgoboge, seven international airlines formally responded to an advert placed by the High Level Technical Team committee and five local companies have also shown interest.

Responding to a BOPA questionnaire, Ms Kgoboge said: To date we have received responses from Singapore Airlines, Air Mauritius, Swiss Air and British Airways.

In addition, she said Qatar, Ethiopia and United Arab Emirates had pushed for their Bilateral Air Services Agreement (BASA) to be signed with Botswana. Operations by these airlines will possibility commence after signing the BASA.

Other than that, she said Air Botswana had also indicated it wanted to commence new services to Zambia and Angola.

We are optimistic that after licensing the local operators international and regional routes, airlines from the respective international and regional countries will possibility reciprocate services by establishing new rotes to and from Botswana.

According to Ms Kgoboge local companies which had shown interest to operate scheduled services both domestic and international were Flying Mission, Kgalagadi Express, Air Kavano and Moremi Air We are still waiting for the regulations to be promulgated by the Attorney General Chambers, therefore we will start licensing.

The government has a taken decision to open the national skies and is currently renovating Sir Seretse International Airport in Gaborone, Francistown and Maun airports to allow them the capacity to host bigger aircrafts that will connect Botswana directly to the rest of the world.