Citi Business News has gathered domestic airline Antrak Air will take longer than expected to resume operations in Ghana.
[contextly_sidebar id=”GeVU6KL4EDAJbi38F7uGaB35xLFmEqzV”]The local airline in June,2015 announced that it was suspending its operations for three months due to a wet lease arrangement with Spanish airliner, Swift Air to use its ATR 72-500 Turbo Prop aircraft.
A wet lease is an agreement where one airline provides an aircraft, complete crew, maintenance and insurance to another airline that pays by the operated hours.
The lessee provides fuel and cover airport fees and any other duties and taxes.
The airline is reported to have halted operations because it was indebted to the Spanish airliner.
Per its announcement Antrak was to resume operations in August this year however Citi Business News has learnt the local airline will rather resume operations in the first week of October.
Citi Business News has also gathered that the airline this time round will not enter into any lease agreement but will rather acquire aircrafts.
Citi Business has learnt the aircraft is acquiring two fairly new ATR 72-500 aircrafts with the first one currently in Morocco on checks and will arrive in Accra in September.
The airline’s woes deepened after it failed to pay up cash owned Swift Air.
Director General of the Ghana Civil Aviation Authority, Abdulai Alhassan at the time the airline announced the halt in operations told Citi Business News, Antrak can only resume operations if they settle their debt.
‘’It’s just like a banker customer relationship and once you go into arrears you are blacklisted and then its later resolved.’’
Meanwhile local airline Starbow is currently using the airline Antrak initially leased from Swift Air.
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By: Vivian Kai Lokko/citifmonline.com/Ghana