The long wait that has kept us eager is close to over. The very first of Uganda Airlines’ Bombardier CRJ-900s (CRJ9) was flown to the skies in a test flight conducted at Montreal Mirabel International Airport, Canada.
The Bombardier CRJ900 plane, with a seating capacity of up to 90 passengers, is expected to fly to regional destinations such as Nairobi, Kigali, Bujumbura and Juba among others.
In a video credited to Mark Brandon, the plane is being piloted around the Mirabel Airport run way, before flying through to the Montreal skies and back.
The revival
Uganda Airlines was the country’s flag carrier until 2001 when her operations ceased. Government has for the past one and a half decade sketched plans to wake up the operations, and is now striving to bring the airline back to life following an order of 4 CRJ9 and 2 A339 aircrafts.
In July last year, Canadian Jet manufacturer Bombardier Commercial Aircraft announced that it had signed a firm order for four CRJ900 regional jets with Uganda Airlines. This deal was the foundational part of the efforts to revive the national airlines.
The four bombardiers are estimated to cost about UGX 700 billion. The other two A330-800s are to be delivered by Airbus in 2020.
Ugandan Minister for Works and Transport, Monica Azuba said the first of four CRJ-900s would arrive in January followed by the remaining three over the following three months, but the time frame is likely to extend given that we are in the second half of February.
The airline was initially slated to launch in April this year which doubled as the carrier start date before an alteration at the Ministry of Works and Transport bred a new launch date from April to June 2019.
President Museveni has already called on the Uganda Airlines team to launch the national airline as soon as possible.
