Mozambique's national airline plans more routes to revitalize company

MAPUTO, May 29 (Xinhua) -- Mozambique's national flag carrier, Linhas Aereas de Mocambique (LAM), will explore new destinations including Brazil, China, India, and the United Arab Emirates, and reactivate the Maputo-Lisbon route as part of the strategy to rescue the debt-ridden company, LAM's management committee announced Monday.

"We are going to reopen some routes. The first phase will be Maputo-Portugal, then the subsequent phases will be Maputo-Sao Paulo, Maputo-Guangzhou, Maputo-Mumbai, Maputo-Dubai," said Sergio Matos, project and restructuring manager of Fly Modern Ark, at a press conference in Maputo, capital of Mozambique.

LAM has been run by Fly Modern Ark, a South African company, as part of its restructuring efforts since April.

The press conference was called to share the results of the first month of the strategic intervention by Fly Modern Ark.

Matos said that LAM's fleet of aircraft will be gradually increased from the current seven to 14 and the acquisition of more aircraft is part of the plans to reach new routes.

The manager said that the increase in the fleet will make it unnecessary to reduce the number of workers en masse, but "some will leave," as the company currently has 753 workers working on just seven planes while the ideal ratio would be at least 25 workers per aircraft.

Since April, the company has cut ticket prices by 30 percent to attract more passengers, he said.

The company also wants to add the central city of Beira and the northern city of Nampula to the current Maputo city as its regional operation hubs, Sergio Matos said.