Soft spoken Uganda Airlines Chief Executive Officer Jenifer Bamuturaki Abwooli is in Kigali Rwanda, representing the banana republic in the Aviation Africa Summit & Exhibition 2022.
Jennifer is among the top 100 leaders of the global aviation companies attending the 6th exhibition, hosted at Kigali Convention Centre, Rwanda.
The event was held under the theme; ‘Driving revival as recovery strategies take flight. Where will we go from here? – Shaping the future for aviation with light at the end of the tunnel’.
Aviation Africa Summit and Exhibition brings together Government officials, Aviation Leaders, Regulators, Policy Makers, Manufacturers and Exhibitors from all over the world.
During discussions, stakeholders in the aviation sector, including Jennifer shared their experiences and lessons from the past, discussing issues for how the industry can accelerate recovery, promote sustainability and enhance the customer experience.
While giving her submission as a panelist, Jenifer Bamuturaki highlighted the good future of UG Airlines as it has acquired more routes and enhanced its cargo space.
As of today, Uganda Airlines has expanded its network to over 11 destinations since its inception.
Despite COVID-19 disruptions, the national carrier carried 154,245 passengers in 2021 compared to 93,780 in 2019 and 2020 combined.
”We also have the opportunity for cargo. The airline is looking forward to grabbing the opportunity of the growing cargo sector, in order to increase our profits in 5-7 years,” said Bamuturaki who was part of the panel at the two-days Aviation Africa Summit in Kigali.
Also, the CEO mentioned that it’s important to strengthen partnerships because they have a great impact on driving the Carrier forward in the market.
Promising Leadership
In just one year Bamuturaki has been at Uganda Airlines [as acting & substantive CEO], there has been impressive progress that has since put the Airline among the continental superpowers.
According to statistics obtained by our spy at the Airline, the national carrier’s operating costs rose to $101 million or 76 per cent during the financial year that ended on June 30, 2022, compared to a 53 per cent increase the year before. Revenues increased from $12.7 million in fiscal 2020/21 to $38.3 million according to the yet-to-be-released results for last year.
Passenger numbers increased to 217.533, compared to 92.713 for the preceding period, while half a million are projected for the current financial year.
“The market disruptions imposed by COVID-19 restrictions threw us off-track on many parameters in our projections, but we are getting back. A positive indicator, for now, is that our revenues are growing faster than our costs, so it’s good to see that we are flying nose up,” a source in the Airline told our spy recently.
Uganda Airlines has since gone for the long-haul network to stimulate connecting traffic between the existing regional network and destinations such as London and Guangzhou. Bujumbura in Burundi, Kinshasa, and Juba is already showing good potential for connecting traffic.
