by Ben Taylor

Air travel
A direct flight linking Dar es Salaam with China has been promised by Hainan Airlines of China. This was announced by the company chairman, Chen Feng, during a visit to China by the Tanzanian Prime Minister, Mizengo Pinda. Dar es Salaam should aim to become a hub airport for passengers from across Africa travelling to China. (Daily News)

The recent emergence of FastJet as a low cost airline continues to shake up the domestic scene, offering one-way tickets from Dar to Arusha, Mwanza and Mbeya for as little as TSh 32,000. This price is comparable with bus fares, and brings the cost of flights within range for a much larger number of Tanzanians.

Perhaps as a result, Precision Air is struggling. A report by the airline’s auditors, Ernst and Young, presented to their AGM in November, found the company’s finances in bad shape. The company’s liabilities exceeded its assets by $53m, and it made a $18.7m loss in its last financial year. Previously, the company requested a government bailout of $32m, but this was rebuffed. (East African)

Innovations in Dar es Salaam

Map of Dar-es-Salaam showing the Kigamboni bridge location

Construction of the 6-lane road bridge connecting Kigamboni with Dar es Salaam city centre is well under way. The first of two pylons needed for the 680m long cable-stayed bridge has been completed. It will connect Kurasini and Vijibweni, upstream of Dar es Salaam port, at a reported cost of Tsh 200bn. There are also plans for a new satellite city in Kigamboni [see “Tanzania in the international media” section]. (Daily News)

The sustainability of Dar es Salaam’s experiment in commuter trains has come into question. It has been found that the 12km line between Ubungo and the city centre is running at a daily loss of Tsh 2m. The initiative [see TA 104] was the brainchild of Minister of Transport, Harrison Mwakyembe, and carries an estimated 5,000 passengers per day, each paying TSh 400 (£0.15). (Citizen)

Work continues on preparing Morogoro Road and connected major arteries for the Dar Rapid Transport scheme. Under this scheme, large commuter buses will replace daladalas, and will operate along dedicated lanes [see TA 98]. Phase 1 links Kimara, Ubungo and Morocco with Kariakoo and Kivukoni – a total of 21km – and is scheduled to begin operating in July 2015. Phase 2 (Kilwa Road) and Phase 3 (Nyerere Road) will follow. (Daily News, the Guardian)

Ongoing works on the DART

Rail expansion
In what could become the biggest overhaul and expansion of Tanzania’s rail network for a generation, several schemes are in various stages of development. This has been prompted in part by China’s re-emergence as a major player in Tanzania, and in part by political and economic competition within East Africa.

A competitive tender has been launched for a railway line connecting Mtwara with the Chinese-owned Liganga-Mchuchuma mine complex in Ludewa district, Njombe region. It will pass through Songea, and will include a branch line to Mbinga and Mbamba Bay on Lake Nyasa. Newspaper reports of the expected cost range from $1.5 billion to $3.6 billion. (Citizen, Daily News)

Plans are also under discussion to upgrade and/or extend the country’s three major existing lines, though they have been met with scepticism by observers. The Minister of Transport, Harrison Mwakyembe announced a plan to upgrade the Tanga-Arusha line and to extend it as far as Musoma. Japanese support for the central line has been promised, with the eventual goal of upgrading the line to standard gauge; and there has even been talk of an extension from Isaka to the Rwanda capital, Kigali. A Chinese-supported upgrade of the TAZARA line is already in motion, with six new diesel engines delivered in November. (Daily News, Guardian)

by David Brewin

Dar-Chalinze expressway planned
Plans to upgrade the road between Dar es Salaam and Chalinze to a six-lane highway are well advanced, according to the Deputy Minister for Works Gerson Lwenge. The road will be operated as a toll-road. “The 110km Dar es Salaam – Chalinze road has been a headache to transport­ers and has been a cause of unnecessary delays and accidents. But with the implementation of the project, the cost of doing business will be cut down,” he said.

According to Tanroads, the project is expected to take three years and entails construction of six lanes to expressway toll road standards with service roads on both sides and grade separated interchangeability. Access will be controlled and embankments will be high enough to accommodate frequent underpasses and interchanges while maintain­ing good vertical profile. (Daily News)

Tanzania set to become port hub for East Africa
Dar-es-Salaam port has been ranked the top port in East Africa by the the 2012 East African Logistics Performance Survey by the Shipper Council of East Africa (SCEA). This significant improvement in logistics performance is due to drastic changes implemented by the Tanzanian Port Authority in processing cargo in Dar-es-Salaam. However, ship­ping a container from East Africa can still cost more than double than if it were shipped from the Far East.

In addition, new ports are expected in Bagamoyo (which will have the capacity to handle 20 million containers per year, compared with Dar es Salaam’s installed capacity of 500,000) and Tanga. Furthermore, exten­sive infrastructure improvements are planned at Mtwara, Tanga and Bagamoyo. (tanzaniaInvest)

Fastjet FTZ1A (Airbus A319) shortly after landing in Dar es Salaam JNIA on its inaugural flight (Fastjet).

New ‘no frills’ airline launched
A new ‘no frills’ airline called ‘Fastjet’, modelled on the Easyjet airline which has revolutionised air travel in Europe, was launched in Africa on November 29th. The famous entrepreneur Sir Stelios Haji Ioannou, who started Easyjet, has joined with Lonrho’s airline, which flies in West Africa to establish the new group. Significantly, Fastjet chose to begin in Tanzania and Dar es Salaam airport will be its first African hub. It has already leased two planes, has 15 more on order (all Airbus A319s with a capacity for up to 156 passengers), and plans to build up to a fleet of 40.

Tanzania’s dynamic Minister of Transport, Dr Harrison Mwakyembe, spoke about the unusually speedy implementation of this vast project when he addressed a crowded AGM of the Britain Tanzania Society in London in mid November. Fastjet plans to expand from Tanzania into Kenya in 2013 and then to Ghana and Angola which are already served by the Lonrho airline. It is advertising for pilots, passenger services agents, cabin crew and crew managers and also for retail sales agents in the East African media.

‘Taking the country by storm.’
The Citizen wrote that the launch had taken the country by storm, as the airline transported 900 passengers in eight flights from Dar to Mwanza and Kilimanjaro and back on its first day! The airline’s management told investors that demand for seats on these routes far outstripped supply. In slightly over a week, Fastjet had recorded 8,000 bookings for its first two routes and the Fastjet.com website had received over 20,000 hits in its first four days. Fastjet sells air tickets as cheap as $20 (TShs 32,000) one way pre-tax, although most tickets are expected to sell at around TShs 120,000 according to Chief Executive Ed Winter. This is still significantly less than its main competitor, Precision Air, which charges about TShs 375,000 for a return ticket between Dar es Salaam and Mwanza excluding taxes. Precision Air operates three flights a day on the Dar-Mwanza route. Air Tanzania (ATCL) operates one flight a day for the same route, while Fastjet now operates two flights a day.

The London Times, in its coverage, emphasised the new airline’s mascot. In an article under the heading ‘Parrot prepares to take to the skies,’ it wrote that Sir Stelios had taken the African grey parrot as the airline’s mascot. It said that the African grey was renowned for its intelligence and therefore the perfect personification of the smart way to fly.

What will happen to Precision Air and Air Tanzania?
Precision Air, the main Tanzanian airline, has been developing rapidly and, unlike Air Tanzania, is a well managed and successful airline. It has 13 aircraft and is not paying dividends to shareholders from its profits (TShs 634 million last year) but using them instead to modernise its fleet. It seems likely to face strong competition from Fastjet on the routes it covers. However, according to the East African, it may have already adopted a strategy to protect its Tanzanian market. In November it received a new 50-seater ATR 42-800 plane, thus being the first airline to operate this new model, and is expected to receive two more as part of a three year $100 million fleet expansion plan. ATR (Aerei da Trasporto Regionale or Avions de Transport Régional) is a French-Italian aircraft construction company headquartered in Toulouse, France. The ATR’s are able to land at most of Tanzania’s airstrips many of which have hangers that cannot accommodate bigger planes.

Air Tanzania Company Ltd has had such a blighted history, exacerbated often by poor management, that many are said to be wondering if it has any future in the new age of fierce competition. But it struggles on and in October 2012, after a long gap when it was not operational, it took to the air again with its two aircraft – a 50-seater Dash SQ-300 and a leased Boeing 737-500. It also has to cope with other competition in Tanzanian airspace including planes from Link, Kenya airways, Fly 549, Air Uganda and Rwandair.

Older airlines not afraid
Immediately after the first Fastjet flights the two older airlines issued a statement which said that Fastjet was not a threat to their businesses because of the quality of their services and customer loyalty that they had cultivated over a long period.

ATCL Acting Commercial Director Mwanamvua Ngocho noted: “I don’t see any threat, though we perceive the coming of Fastjet as a challenge for us to come up with more innovative services. These are business techniques which aim at capturing human psychology without necessarily reflecting the real cost of travelling…Otherwise, we will work together without any problem,”. She also expressed doubts about the sustainability of the low budget airline, saying it would take a short time for Tanzanians to understand that the real flying cost is almost the same as other airlines especially with bags and other luggage taken into account.

Fastjet said they were not launching a price war with other operators but aimed at stimulating the market by attracting new travellers who had not been flying before. As this issue goes to the press, there are reports, as yet unconfirmed, of a possible partnership with Emirates and moves to establish a hub in South Africa (London Times 5th December).

Third air terminal for Dar
The government has called for bids from 20 international firms for the construction of a third terminal at the Julius Nyerere International Airport in Dar es Salaam as traffic increases substantially each year. The expanded airport aims to step up passenger numbers to 8 million per year. The successful bid will be announced in January 2013 and the work will be done under a public/private partnership arrangement. The airport was constructed in 1984 when passenger numbers were 1.5 million.

China helps Tazara Railway again
Tanzania, Zambia, and China have agreed on 12 new projects to help improve the performance of the Tanzania-Zambia Railway (Tazara) line which has become dilapidated over recent years. Cargo has dropped from 1.2 million tonnes in 1992 to 330,000 tonnes in 2011-12. Passengers are down from its original 3 million capacity to 790,000 in the same period. China is providing £42 million for rehabilitation of 42 passenger coaches, 6 locomotives and rescue and lifting equipment.

Dar es Salaam commuting rail service

Minister of Transport, Dr. Harrison Mwakyembe (centre waving hand) accom­panied by officials from the Transportation Authority of Land Surface and Marine (Sumatra) on the first commuter train. Photo isaackin.blogspot

Tanzania’s first ever commuter rail service was launched on 29th October. The first route (operated by Tanzania Railways Ltd TRL) covers 20km between Ubungo-Maziwa and the central railway station, while the second is operated by Tazara and covers 25km between Mwakanga (Pugu area) and the Tazara station. Initially a single train is operating on each line, shuttling to and fro during the morning and evening rush hours. A one-way ticket costs 400TShs (about £0.15), and just 100TShs for pupils, comparing favourably to daladala fares which range between 500 shillings and 1,000 shillings depending on the journey.

Inaugurating the new service, Dr Harrison Mwakyembe said TSh6 bil­lion (£2.3 million) had been spent renovating train carriages and railway infrastructure for the TRL line while about TSh800 million (£0.8 million) was spent repairing the Tazara tracks. He thanked TRL officials for their decision to forgo purchase of brand new railcars in favour of renovating old ones which allowed the project to remain within budget.

As of December the government has stopped issuing licences to private companies that operate small commuter buses (daladalas) in Dar es Salaam, as part of its plan to replace them with much larger buses under a government-managed rapid transit system (DART) (see TA 98).

The Dar – Kigoma – Mwanza railway line
This line lost 83 kms of track in the floods last year and then had to cope with the disastrous contract with an Indian management company which eventually had to be terminated. A very limited service is now being offered. This line promises to be the Minister’s biggest headache.

Major new ports and railway
The biggest project being planned by Tanzania’s Ministry of Transport is the construction of a new port at Mwambeni Bay, Tanga. It is part of a grand project to develop an alternative sea route for Uganda and other land-locked countries such as Malawi, Zambia, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, which have been depending on the overcrowded port of Mombasa. The project, a joint effort with Uganda, would include a new railway from Arusha to Musoma and a new port on the Ugandan side of Lake Victoria. Freight would be conveyed from Musoma dock by ferry to Port Bell pier – about 350 kilometres inside Uganda. A rail connection runs via Tororo to Gulu – nearly 600 kilometres on the Pakwach branch. North Gulu. A new line of roughly 250 kilometres would be constructed to Juba, and a further 550 kilometres to the Wau railhead in Southern Sudan. President Museveni of Uganda has repeatedly said that Musoma port was the “lifeline” of Uganda’s dreams.

A feasibility report prepared by UK-based consultants United Research Services recommended the construction of the new Tanga port because the present capacity would hit its maximum pressure in 2016. Although the existing port could be increased to accommodate short term traffic growth, it would become very congested. The team believe that export of soda ash from the proposed project at Lake Natron would only be possible with new port facilities. However, a section of industrialists saw no logic in constructing a new port at Mwambeni as opposed to undertaking the rehabilitation of the old port.

A speaker at a Stakeholders’ meeting on this final feasibility study said that talks about the new port dated as far back as 1968, when a founda­tion stone was laid on the proposed site. Conservationists at the meeting demanded that the project be scrapped to preserve the Coelacanth marine park (the primordial fish that was earlier believed to have been extinct since the end of the Cretaceous period) and sea tourism.

The Minister for Transport made his position clear and assured Tanga residents that the government had not forsaken Tanga. Reacting to the alleged threat to the Coelacanth, the Minister said that government was being very cautious over the matter, noting that a very thorough feasi­bility study had been conducted to make sure it was on the right track.

The report caused fresh outcry from environmentalists concerned that the proposed railway extension is expected to pass through the Serengeti National Park. This is a development which environmentalists are vehemently opposing, arguing that the ecosystem would be disrupted with noisy trains passing through the wildlife sanctuary. They claimed that this was what had caused the plan to be shelved during the days of the late President Nyerere when the idea was first mooted in the late 80s.

Officials of the two countries have said the project is provisionally estimated to cost $2.7 billion, out of which $1.9 billion is for the construction of the railway line, $672.6 million for the development of Mwambeni Port and $72 million for the development of Musoma dock.

Precision Air
Local investors have shown an impressive response to Precision Air Service’s initial public offering (IPO) of shares on the Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange. This was described in the Daily News as an indication of the growing interest in Tanzania in investing in shares.

The airline is selling its shares at TShs 475 to increase its capital and expose ownership of the firm to Tanzanians. The money raised is earmarked for the purchase of ground handling equipment and aircraft spare parts. The airline will remain with a 35.5% shareholding, Kenya Airways with 34.1%, and the public sector 30.4%. The airline plans to fly to 15 international and regional destinations in the next two years. It currently has a fleet of eleven aircraft serving 13 domestic and regional destinations, with five international routes (the Comoros, Entebbe, Johannesburg, Mombasa and Nairobi).

Air Tanzania
The national carrier, Air Tanzania Company Limited (ATCL), whose planes had been grounded for several months, resumed operations at the end of October, flying to two destinations –Tabora and Kigoma.

The new ATCL acting Director General, Mr Paul Chizi, said that the Tanzania Civil Aviation Authority (TCAA), had already granted ATCL an Air Operators Certificate after inspections proved that the company had fulfilled all the conditions. ATCL has positioned itself to compete in the aviation sector for the next five years.

The plan was unveiled by Deputy Minister for Transportation, Dr Athumani Mfutakamba, who said that the plan put ATCL at a good position to regain its lost glory in the aviation sector not only in Tanzania, but in the East African region as a whole. In the last budget the government set aside TShs 16.7 billion to enable ATCL to resume operations. The government has also promised to pay ATCL workers’ back salaries -The Citizen.

Minister for Infrastructure Dr Shukuru Kawambwa, has revealed some of the problems facing Air Tanzania (ATCL).

He said for several years government has been trying to bail it out by pumping in more and more capital, but it continued limping. As a result it was decided that as from June this year the airline would be restructured. “It is not enough to do minor jobs. We intend to transform ATCL into a new airline with the cooperation of the private sector,” the Minister said – Nipashe.

He said efforts by the government to find a reliable investor for the cash-strapped airline were continuing. The Chinese firm China Sanangol International Limited (CSIL), which had earlier shown interest, appeared to be withdrawing.
The Minister said that ATCL was spending more than it earns. The firm’s revenue between July 2009 and March 2010 was Shs 7.8 billion while its expenditure stood at Shs 26 billion. During this period ATCL had carried a total of 63,362 passengers and 253 tonnes of cargo.

The Communication and Transport Workers’ Union (COTWU) has also registered its concern over the plight of ATCL, which they said they saw collapsing unless concerted efforts were made to resuscitate it.

Air Tanzania Corporation Limited (ACTL) management stated in April that it could not repair the B737-200 aircraft that crash landed at Mwanza airport in February since the cost of doing so would be too high. The Corporation would be referring the matter to its insurance company – Guardian on Sunday.