LAM PLANS FLIGHTS TO LISBON AS FROM APRIL

Mozambique Airlines (LAM) plans to resume direct flights between Maputo and Lisbon as from April, according to the company’s chairperson, Jose Viegas.In an end-of-year message, Viegas said that initially LAM will fly to Lisbon twice a week. Since LAM currently does not possess planes capable of non-stop intercontinental flights, it will use a Boeing 767-300 on loan from Air Seychelles.“We are ambitious and we want to be in the vanguard of the industry, growing in a secure and sustainable fashion”, declared Viegas. “That’s why we are going to expand our medium-haul fleet, and also begin flights to Lisbon”.Currently flights from Maputo to Lisbon are only operated by the Portuguese airline TAP, in a code-sharing arrangement with LAM.Viegas said that LAM’s trading income rose by nine percent this year. Over the previous 12 months the airline carried 533,775 passengers – which is 76,608 more than in 2009 (an increase of 16 per cent).This is largely due to an increased number of flights, both on domestic and on regional routes. Within the southern and eastern African region, LAM is now flying to Johannesburg, Luanda, Dar es Salaam and Nairobi.Viegas said that LAM had suffered over the year from increased prices of jet fuel, and from the decline in the value of the national currency, the metical. Despite these constraints, in October LAM increased that number of Maputo-Nairobi flights from two to three a week, and in December added a route from the northern city of Nampula to Nairobi.“We broadened our horizons in 2010, flying more frequently to Luanda and Nairobi, and linking the provincial capitals with greater regularity to Johannesburg and Nairobi”, he said.