How a banned Air Zimbabwe is returning to London

Air Zimbabwe is preparing its first flight to London Gatwick after more than a 14-year hiatus, using an Airbus A330 leased from Spanish airline Plus Ultra Líneas Aéreas. The flight is set to resume tomorrow, Wednesday, July 22, and will operate three times a week.

Air Zimbabwe has been banned from operating its own aircraft into the United Kingdom and the EU since 2017, so how has the airline been able to resume operations?

The wet lease loophole

Air Zimbabwe's ban applies to it as an operator, and not as a seller of commercial seats. Both the UK and EU Air Safety List outline that a listed carrier may be permitted to exercise its traffic rights using wet-leased aircraft of a carrier that is not subject to an operating ban, provided the relevant safety standards are met. That is where Plus Ultra comes in.

Essentially, the new Harare-London Gatwick flight is sold and marketed by Air Zimbabwe under its own codes (UM/AZW), carries its branding, and the airline deals with the passengers. But operationally, Plus Ultra flies it. The Spanish long-haul operator supplies the aircraft, crew, maintenance and insurance under a 13-month agreement.

The lease alone did not get Air Zimbabwe into Gatwick because the airline also needed a foreign operator permit from the UK Civil Aviation Authority, and waiting on that permit pushed the relaunch back from its original 1 July date.

Air Zimbabwe’s seized aircraft

Air Zimbabwe served London before it ever owned a widebody, but the route came into its own once the airline introduced the Boeing 767-200ER in 1989. When British Airways pulled out of Harare in 2007, it handed Zimbabwe's flag carrier a monopoly on nonstop services, and at its peak, the route ran six times a week.

In December 2011, the 767 landed at London Gatwick and was seized over a debt to American General Supplies, a spare parts supplier, which the court order cited at $1.2 million. Up to 60 passengers spent the night in the terminal, and when the aircraft was released on 20 December, technical faults grounded it for a further four days.

The impounded aircraft marked the beginning of the end for Air Zimbabwe's London operations, and the airline discontinued the service in February 2012. It never stopped trying to restart the route, and plans surfaced to use ex-Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777s, but nothing materialised.

The final blow came in 2017, when the EU blacklisted the airline and closed off any prospect of a return.

Air Zimbabwe is back, but its safety rating is unchanged

The leased Airbus lets Air Zimbabwe sell the route again, but it does not change what the airline is. Air Zimbabwe remains on both the UK and EU Air Safety Lists, and AirlineRatings.com rates it as a Two Star airline.

Passengers flying the route will sit in a Spanish-registered aircraft, with Spanish crew, under Spanish safety oversight. The lease runs for 13 months, and whether Air Zimbabwe can fill a 302-seat aircraft three times a week against carriers that have carried this traffic for 14 years is a question only the year ahead will tell.