Minister of Public Works and Transport Ntuthuko Dlamini has reiterated his desire for the country to have its own airline.
He mentioned that a person who did not dream had no future, saying dreams were the wings of the mind and aspirations.
“It is my dream, my vision - probably it will translate to a national dream now that we have first class aviation facilities like the Sikhuphe International Airport. It indeed is my dream that there should be an aircraft that will take off and touch down at the new international airport while bearing the Swazi flag.”

Dlamini made this disclosure after Prime Minister Dr Sibusiso Dlamini told editors that the statement by the minister - that the country intended to buy a plane was just his dream.

The minister was speaking at a press conference at the Royal Swazi Spa, which was attended by Managing Director of Routes Africa, the Minister, the Swaziland Aviation Authority and the Tourism Authority.

The minister observed that they were also in the process of reviving the old routes of the Royal Swaziland National Airways Corporation (RSNAC) now that the Sikhuphe International Airport was nearing completion.

“To further reiterate this, we are currently reviving the RSNAC board in preparation of the possibilities of reviving the national airline. We are working at that around the clock since we cannot have an airport of international standards and be without an aircraft. Again, I must state that the aircraft part is still my dream, for now, who knows, it may be government’s dream soon.”
On Sunday, delegates to the conference visited the Sikhuphe International Airport and had been impressed by what they saw.
“They also emphasised that we should revive the old routes and they would then put in their aircrafts to service them. It is always better for an airline company to service a route, and the responsible country simply has to secure them, so they can then operate them with their aircrafts.”

On another note, he mentioned that the country had a problem - the European Union had still not lifted the ban on locally registered aircraft in European skies as a result of some operational and professional problems.
“We have to work extra hard to have that ban lifted, now that we have such a facility like Sikhuphe.
We are hard at work to normalise that. I recently had the opportunity of engaging the Angolans who have just been removed from that kind of a ban, and what surfaced is that it is not the International Aviation bodies that effect such bans, but the European Union. But we will work hard to ensure that we are removed from that blacklist.”

More Featured Articles