In recent days, passengers travelling with Uganda Airlines between Uganda and destinations such as the United Kingdom, Nigeria and Dubai have experienced serious inconvenience due to the airline’s repeated failure to operate flights according to schedule.
While occasional delays are a common aspect of air travel, the disruptions associated with Uganda Airlines have gone far beyond what passengers reasonably expect. Compounding the problem is the airline’s lack of timely communication and the absence of basic passenger support such as accommodation and meals during prolonged delays, services that are standard practice among most airlines.
As a result, travelers have been left to shoulder additional costs, endure significant loss of time, and miss critical business and personal commitments. Before scrutinising the current issue, it is important to briefly review the history of Uganda Airlines, including its original launch, the factors that led to its collapse, and its relaunch in 2021.
Uganda Airlines was established in 1976 under the government-owned Uganda Development Corporation and began operations in 1977, taking over routes previously operated by East African Airways through the integration of Uganda Aviation Services.
In the late 1970s, Uganda Airlines acquired its first Boeing 707-320C, and new routes to London, Brussels and Rome were established. A second Boeing was purchased in 1981, leading to the launch of new routes to Dubai, Cairo and Cologne, followed by Nairobi, Dar es Salaam and Kilimanjaro.
However, as Uganda Airlines grew, it encountered serious challenges. Notably, on April 1, 1979, during the Uganda – Tanzania War, a Boeing 707-320C was destroyed by Tanzanian military forces while stationed at Entebbe International Airport.
Furthermore, the company was plagued by financial mismanagement and a culture of impunity. For instance, on February 24, 1986, the general manager, Dr Ben Ochola Latigo, ordered an aircraft to turn back more than 30 minutes after departure simply because he had arrived late at Entebbe Airport while en route from Kampala to Karachi, Pakistan.
On October 17, 1988, Flight 755, an international passenger service from London Gatwick to Rome Fiumicino via Entebbe, crashed during final approach to Leonardo da Vinci–Fiumicino Airport due to poor visibility.
The Boeing 707- 320C (registration 5X-UBC) struck a building, broke apart, and caught fire, killing 33 of the 52 people on board and leaving many of the survivors seriously injured. By the late 1990s, Uganda Airlines faced severe financial difficulties, leading the government to seek privatization.
With no viable investors and the withdrawal of South African Airways’ bid, all European routes were discounted, and Uganda Airlines was ultimately liquidated in May 2001, ending its first era.
After nearly two decades, Uganda Airlines was reinstated. Its operations have been and continue to be primarily financed by the government of Uganda through equity injections, loans from the Trade and Development Bank, and parliamentary-approved supplementary budgets for aircraft acquisitions.
In August 2019, Uganda Airlines resumed operations, beginning with flights from Entebbe to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport and later expanding to Kilimanjaro and Zanzibar. However, scheduled passenger services were suspended for six months due to Covid-19 travel restrictions but resumed gradually once the restrictions were lifted.
On December 18, 2020, Uganda Airlines began flights to Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, followed by routes to Lagos, Nigeria and Mumbai, India. On May 18, 2025, the airline introduced direct passenger and cargo services between Entebbe and London Gatwick, operating four times per week.
While Uganda Airlines has expanded its network of routes, this growth has been accompanied by a noticeable decline in service quality. Passengers from multiple destinations have reported recurring problems, including frequent and unexplained delays and flight cancellations, compounded by poor communication from the airline.
Many travelers feel that ticket prices are disproportionately high, given the level of service, especially considering the operational challenges. There are also allegations that some airline staff have colluded with travel agencies to manipulate fares, leading to significant financial losses amounting to billions of shillings.
It is vital to evaluate Uganda Airlines’ performance beyond the simple metric of route expansion, including a review of the qualifications and experience of its management, as appointments not based on merit risk wasting taxpayer money.
The current situation has provoked deep concern and raised hard, unavoidable questions among many Ugandans. Was Uganda Airlines relaunched to genuinely serve the national interest, or is it a convenient escape route in the event of political instability or insurgency?
Was it revived to facilitate the private transportation of goods for corrupt and self-serving officials, or is it simply another vehicle for the systematic misappropriation of public funds? Those entrusted with authority must act decisively, transparently, and in the best interest of the nation. Anything less is a betrayal of public trust.
The writer is a political analyst and a student of LLB Law with Politics, Cardiff University.
For flight cancellation internationally, it affects business especially in terms of export and import, many people are dealing in exporting fresh produces to other parts parts of the world like UAE, flight cancellation cause a lot of loses to business owners, as a Ugandan I pray to Uganda airlines success.
Its absolutely un acceptable. The corrupt, incompetent, inexperienced and greedy must be investigated and vetted right from the the top management.
This matter must be addressed for the sake of industry’s survival. The concerned committee of parliament must come in immediately and do their job and save the industry.
Please bring our airbus back from Nigeria
In other words Richard, if not immediately, it will be cannibalized!
It is bewildering! But of all Destinations/country, why NIGERIA?
This is because, when it comes to the unscrupulousness of a people/country, even God cannot convince me to trust any Nigerian; especially when things go wrong to the magnitude of a Ugandan Airline aircraft having technical issues in that country.
You see in Uganda, because of stupidity, the Airbus A330 may have actually been impounded in Nigeria, and that is the new “normal”. Why am using rude language, is because when it comes to operating an airline, any incompetence, corruption, inexperience, and such inadequacies can mean the difference between life and death to the travelling public.
It is an urgent matter to save this airline before the country owning it can be regarded as a banana republic peopled by many f**ls.
“It is vital to evaluate Uganda Airlines’ performance beyond the simple metric of route expansion, including a review of the qualifications and experience of its management, as appointments not based on merit risk wasting taxpayer money.” Indeed this is a management statement well placed on this aspiring international and national airline company. Unfortunately for this long serving government of NRM, it has that sort of mentality that it knows all about running government business when it went in the bush and when it left the bush of Africa to govern now many years and counting. Mind you as well explained about the history of this airline company 1976, there was no social media as its now. There is a very big difference between the recent modern infrastructure of Entebbe Expressway and the recently built fast Elizabeth line in London or any other airport transport that drops the public on to thousands of various international airports all over the world. Right now one can find out how many aeroplanes are in the air, their times of flight, the height they are on, and their various destinations. God knows how Uganda with its ineffectual infrastructure(murrum roads, weak wifi, constant electrical outage etc.) can try to manage a modern international and national airline. Of course Uganda as a landlocked country has the market to travel and the money to be made. Unfortunately as the bible advises, oyo alina akatono, nakatono ako kalina kalimujjibwako nekaweebwa alina ebingi!
I have already booked my ticket on Uganda airlines but let me hope I will get the best service for the very first time to use it to use it
In other words Kazibwe, instead of the humility of continuity of harnessing and improving on whatever is/was found in place; what the Uganda Airline is undergoing, is the typical NRM leadership culture of arrogance and backwardness of experimenting with the INVENTION of the WHEEL.
Uganda Airline used to have Domestic and/or East African Regional Flights, why didn’t the wishful thinking management first of all start with Domestic and/or Regional Flights, using smaller aircrafts UNTIL having had the minimum hands-on technical and management experiences?
Without mentorship and renewal vis-à-vis rapid technological advancement: after “two decades” of liquidation (limbo) what would any management expert expect, having to start an Airline (complex) from scratch? A Disaster!
Due shallow reasoning, from UEB to UMEME and now to UEDCL; whatever turmoil of power outages going on with UEDCL is the same problem of Reinventing the Wheel.
If ever at all it will be resurrected, the same thing will be the fate of the Uganda Railways (SGR) dream.
After the demise of Coffee Marketing Board, what happened to the Coffee Development Authority? The regime stripped of the German refurbished CMB coffee processing machinery at the Bugolobi Pant and spirited it away to the oblivion, and has now established a so call complex in of all places, Ntungamo.
In other words, to say the least, who in his/her right state of mind can still deny that: all REVOLUTIONARIES are WRONGDOERS and therefore DESTRUCTIVE!
The choice of aircrafts were wrong. To start a matatu service, operator buy Toyota Hiace, for reliability, availability of spares and ease of maintenance.
In place of A320, if they bought 737 service and spares would have been easier to start with. Leasing aircrafts rather than owning could have been another option so that the fleet could be replaced easily in case of mechanical failures and aging. Wrong planning, poor execution.
Some Africans are victims of brainwashing by imperialists. The idea that Ugandans can’t operate an airline using the Airbus Neo jets means even the Kayoola EV Bus is a waste of public funds.
Ug. govt as the major shareholder should inject more equity into the airline for purchase/leasing of more aircrafts. Until economies of scale are achieved with a large fleet and routes, which reduces the unit cost, profitability will never be achieved. If aviation isn’t one of Uganda’s strategic sectors, then abandon the business. We can blame airline managers for being overpaid, but not for all woes of the airline. Aviation industry is expensive and sensitive. Even negative comments in this space can scare would-be passengers. Let’s be a little kind and generous with our comments.