Ghanair to lose ?4.776 billion

The Ghanaian Chronicle says the Ghana Airways would lose over $700,000 (?4.76 billion) by the weekend as a result of its inability to fly down over 300 stranded passengers from the Baltimore-Washington International (BWI) airport in Maryland, USA.

The paper learnt of the possible loss of the money in an interview with Ghanair's head of flight Operations and Chairman of the Management Task Force, Captain Kofi Kwaka, and Mr Joe Brown, head of Engineering and member of the Management Task Force on Wednesday afternoon.

"We are going to lose $700,000 as a result of this," Kwaka said.

Though the Chronicle failed to immediately probe the reasons for the loss of the amount, sources at the White Avenue headquaters of the airline told the paper on Thursday that the amount involved could be more.

The amount represents the loss of revenue that Ghanir would have generated from its botched flight to Accra, including airfares for flying down the stranded passengers and payments for their luggage to Accra.

As at Thursday evening, Ghanair was seeking to charter a plane to fly down its passengers, most of whom are returning home for the just-ended Homecoming Summit and this week's Pan African Festival (Panafest).

The flight from BWI airport was botched because a forklift being used to lift goods onto the Ghanair flight accidentally punctured the body of the plane, rendering it in-operational.

The national carrier over booked 276-seater flight was expected to return to Accra Sunday night from Baltimore, capital of the US State of Maryland.

It was billed to return to pick up more passengers within the week.