Airbus Signs Agreement to Sell Passenger Aircraft to Uganda

The government of President Yoweri Museveni said that the restart of the national carrier will help Uganda to take a share of the region's booming aerospace activity and boost the service sector of the country. 39; economy.

Kenya Airways, South Africa Airways and Ethiopian Airlines currently dominate the country's air transport business.

In a statement on the memorandum of understanding signed at the Farnborough Air Show in the UK, Airbus said that Uganda would purchase two A330-800neo aircraft.

An iteration of the Airbus A330 wide line aircraft, the A330-800neo features new wings and the new generation of Trent 7000 engines from Rolls-Royce. Airbus Chief Commercial Officer Eric Schulz said in a statement that the aircraft "would bring a range of benefits offering unmatched performance with the most modern cabin." We hope to see the A330- 800neo fly under the colors of Uganda. "Founded by former Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in 1976, Uganda Airlines was liquidated in the 1990s by the Museveni government as part of a broader program to privatize troubled state-owned enterprises and to open the economy to private companies.

The country wishes to develop its aerospace industry, all the more as it prepares to start pumping crude oil from the fields of its west, a development expected to result in increased arrivals of business travelers.

A new international airport, funded in part by British credits, is built near fields, mainly to serve the oil industry. [19659004] Once completed, it will be the country's second largest international airport after Entebbe, south of the capital Kampala, which is also expanded with a loan from China to handle more pbadengers and more. e goods.

"This agreement demonstrates our ambition for economic growth supported by a robust aerospace industry," said Ephraim Bagenda, chief executive officer of Uganda Airlines, in a statement.

(Report by Elias Biryabarema, edited by Omar Mohammed and Kirsten Donovan)