The end of the road for Ghana Airways has finally come and for many who thought that the national carrier could trudge on in spite of the monumental problems facing it, the hard reality now is that things have fallen apart and the center can no longer hold.
In the last few weeks, passengers of Ghana Airways have been subjected to everything that is the opposite of standard passenger handling that reflects an organization that places a premium on good customer care relations.
Outraged passengers fed up with last minute cancellation of flights to unannounced cancellation of flights, finally snapped, when those who were scheduled to travel to Rome and Dusseldorf last Thursday, reduced the offices of the airline at the Accra International Airport to rubble, as they smashed everything glass in sight.
In the midst of all this, a name constantly on the lips of the workers of the airline is that of the president of the Republic, John Agyekum Kufuor, the Independent, a private newspaper reports Monday October 6, 2003.
“From questions as to what the president is doing about the fate of the airline to expressions of disappointment at the government’s lame duck approach to the salvaging of the airline, the workers of the airline now say they want the president to dissolve the airline’s board of directors and change the entire management,” the paper said.
“Since Kufuor came, we have had four chief executives in three years. This is a record the president should not be proud of. Every time he changes the chief executive and leaves the management in place. This time we want him to remove the board, chief executive and management,” some of the angry workers of the airline told the paper.
Others also accused the president of not living up to his promise of turning the fortunes of the airline round; “The president has really disappointed us with his approach to the resolution of the problems facing the airline and we want him to understand that our patience has run out.”
In the midst of all the tension engulfing the White Avenue Offices of the airline and its operations, the paper said it has managed to ferret the details of why the center can no longer hold for the national carrier.
The first detail is that all the airline’s five aircraft are presently grounded, three of them in Italy and two in Accra for the simple reason that it lacks funds to pay for maintenance costs.
The airline therefore leased an Airbus A-330-300 from Silver Wing of Canada to service the North American route. Ghanair sources say the airline also leased a DC-10 from Yugoslav Airlines to service the European routes. For whatever reasons, the Yugoslav Airlines aircraft was sent back some two weeks ago.
Ghanair insiders said when the Yugoslav Airline’s aircraft was sent back to the owners, the airline resorted to a single aircraft operation for its North American and European routes – an obviously dangerous decision since the airline flies to London, Rome, Dusseldorf and Hamburg on its European circuit whilst for the North American circuit it flies to Baltimore and New York.
Following this decision, Ghanair insiders said the first flight of the single airline operation using the leased Airbus A 330-300 developed a technical fault at Heathrow, which took five days to correct. “It is this development that has led to the backlog of flights on our European and North American routes culminating in the ugly scenes we have been witnessing lately,” Ghanair insiders say.
In the quest to clear the backlog of passengers, the airline management made a quick dash to lease an aircraft, which landed them in Zimbabwe for a Boeing 767 aircraft, which was flown in last Tuesday.
Our checks revealed that when the Air Zimbabwe aircraft came in, it was refused permission by the Ghana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) to fly as a result of some documentation problems. Meanwhile, the paper says it has obtained stinking details of corrupt deals involving aircraft leases at Ghanair. Chief Executive Philip Owusu said he has no idea about any such deals. “I am hearing about this for the first time and I will look into it.”
The sparks in aircraft lease deals are already flying in all directions and though specific names have been mentioned, the paper says it is combing through the fine details of the mountain of information on aircraft deals at Ghanair before splashing the details.
If the details of the aircraft lease deals and other deals currently being investigated yield any positive results, many will wonder why Ghanair staff are aiming for president Kufuor since it could possibly well end up that they are their own enemies.
