Zimbabwe’s Fly City Air targets 3Q21 launch

Zimbabwean startup Fly City Air (Harare Int’l) is set to introduce its first scheduled flight on September 9, 2021, between Harare Int’l and Mutare, to encourage tourism to the scenic eastern highlands of the Southern African country.

According to a company spokesperson, flights will be operated three times weekly using a Reims-Cessna (twin turboprop) F406 Caravan II to be chartered from state-owned Falcon Air (Zimbabwe) (Harare Charles Prince), but that company’s director, Monica Chogumaira, told ch-aviation the matter had not yet been finalised. “We are still talking and they are coming to our offices on Monday to discuss the details,” she said from Harare.

According to the Fly City Air spokesperson, the 40-minute flights costing USD100 one-way would operate on Sundays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from Harare and return to Mutare on the following day. Flights to Harare would be timed to connect with onward services on other carriers domestically to Bulawayo and Victoria Falls; and internationally to Johannesburg O.R. Tambo, Cape Town, Dar es Salaam, and Dubai Int’l, she said. On its official social media page, Fly City Air is also touting possible Harare-Kwekwe flights.

For its part, Mutare has not seen large scale commercial service since the early 1980s when Air Zimbabwe (UM, Harare Int’l) used its then fleet of Viscounts to run 3x weekly triangle services between Harare, Mutare, and Chipinge.