The restoration of British Airways’ flights to Victoria Falls after more than a year of service suspension is a big endorsement to the country’s tourism sector and Zimbabwe’s investment profile, industry players have said.
A special reception was conducted last Thursday when the global airline service landed at Victoria Falls International Airport with more than 90 passengers on board coming to Zimbabwe’s prime tourism destination.
Various stakeholders and tourism players were at the airport by 1PM to welcome back the British Airways, which is operated by Comair.
The airline’s operations were suspended from March 24 last year at the height of the Covid-19 travel restrictions.
Its return comes at a time when more airlines have expressed interest to resume flight services to Zimbabwe, which has made significant strides in ensuring visitors’ safety through rolling out Covid-19 vaccinations.
Victoria Falls has become the first city in the country to attain herd immunity after a majority of its residents turned up for inoculation thereby boosting confidence of tourists to resume visits to the destination.
The airline’s country manager, Ms Karen Tumazos, said the resumption of flights was a big win for tourism operations.
“This is a great introduction for us to bring visitors to Victoria Falls City, which is one of the top destinations in Zimbabwe.
It has been over a year since we last flew here and we are hoping to see an increase in passengers going forward,” she said.
“We will be flying twice weekly in May and from June 1 we are back on daily flights and we hope to keep flying and increase frequencies to Zimbabwe,” said Ms Tumazos.
Some of the passengers who came from South Africa were excited to be back to the resort city and could not wait to experience the adventures and wonders of Victoria Falls including seeing wildlife and sampling other activities.
“I have been coming to Victoria Falls for the past 15 years and l still get the drive to come back…