Ethiopian Airlines offered Air Zimbabwe, the flag carrier of Zimbabwe, a partnership deal that includes Ethiopian bringing planes, training pilots and assisting Air Zimbabwe to become an aircraft maintenance hub in the South African Development Community (SADC) region.

This deal to Air Zimbabwe from Ethiopian, Africa’s biggest airline, has been described as “lucrative”.

It has been reported that Ethiopian’s Group CEO, Tewolde GebreMariam, paid a courtesy call to Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangawa in Addis Ababa.

Sibusiso Moyo, Zimbabwe’s Foreign Affairs and International Trade Minister, commenting on the pending partnership, said, “[Ethiopian Airlines is] prepared to support the organization for maintenance so that Zimbabwe becomes a hub of maintenance of aircraft just like Addis is. They would do that together with maintenance people of Air Zimbabwe and so that we can get a clear partnership which would then fly the Air Zimbabwe routes in code, sharing with Air Zimbabwe colors and they will fly all over the world using that particular agreement.”

Attending the meeting were also George Charamba, Zimbabwe’s ambassador to Ethiopia, and Albert Chimbindi, Zimbabwe’s permanent representative to the AU.

During their discussion, Ethiopian’s Group CEO Tewolde and Zimbabwe’s President Mnangawa also raised the issue of $18 million which Ethiopian Airlines has hanging in its Zimbabwean account.

“They touched on that and that it is worth about $18 million which is stuck in Zimbabwe but that was not so much of an issue because they believe that if they establish a partnership with Air Zimbabwe they will be able to get that money without any problems and in a very short space of time. His Excellency has also promised that my counterpart the Minister of Finance is going to take a serious position in terms of reducing that debt,” added Sibusiso Moyo.

Source (Including Image): ZBC