News / National
Empty AirZim plane picks Mugabe from medical check-up
09 Jul 2012 at 08:43hrs | Views
The financially-beleaguered Air Zimbabwe on Saturday despatched an "almost empty" Boeing 767 to South Africa to pick up President Robert Mugabe as he flew back from a "routine medical check-up" in Singapore.
A Boeing 767 - with a capacity for 205 passengers - is reported to have left Harare on Saturday around 4am for Waterkloof Airforce Base Airport in Gauteng with about 10 cabin crew members to airlift Mugabe, his wife Grace and about 15 aides and security details.
Mugabe left Zimbabwe on Monday last week using the same "empty" Boeing 767. He flew into South Africa from where he then boarded a commercial flight to Singapore.
The plane was back home around 10am. The two trips required about 40 000 litres of fuel at a cost of about 60c a litre making the cost of the fuel alone $24 000.
Mugabe's spokesperson George Charamba yesterday confirmed that AirZim uplifted the President from South Africa, but denied that the airline was being abused.
He said the President's Office had chartered the plane.
He said it was not the President's Office's business to choose a Boeing 767 to pick up Mugabe and his entourage as it was AirZim who decides what to give the Mugabe.
A Boeing 767 - with a capacity for 205 passengers - is reported to have left Harare on Saturday around 4am for Waterkloof Airforce Base Airport in Gauteng with about 10 cabin crew members to airlift Mugabe, his wife Grace and about 15 aides and security details.
Mugabe left Zimbabwe on Monday last week using the same "empty" Boeing 767. He flew into South Africa from where he then boarded a commercial flight to Singapore.
Mugabe's spokesperson George Charamba yesterday confirmed that AirZim uplifted the President from South Africa, but denied that the airline was being abused.
He said the President's Office had chartered the plane.
He said it was not the President's Office's business to choose a Boeing 767 to pick up Mugabe and his entourage as it was AirZim who decides what to give the Mugabe.
Source - newsday
