Air Zimbabwe announced Thursday it was resuming flights to Britain,a week after suspending them over volcanic ash clouds from Iceland that disrupted air travel in Europe.
But airline chief executive Peter Chikumba said for now, the flights were on trial basis and that normal services to London would only be restored next week.
Air Zimbabwe lost around US$1 million in revenue because of the flight suspension, which left over 1,600 of its passengers stranded in Harare and London.
“We have resumed flights to London, and we will be having another flight tomorrow. We will also be operating our Sunday flight and we are hoping to get back to normal flights on Wednesday next week,” Chikumba said.
Almost all European airports closed last week over the ash clouds, which aviation experts feared could cause plane crashes.
For Air Zimbabwe, the flight ban had a heavy financial knock-on effect, as its European route are the airline’s cash cow.
The flight ban also forced a government ministerial team – engaged in talks with the European Union to normalise relations with the country – to cancel a scheduled meeting this week because it could not travel to Brussels.
