(Business in Cameroon) - Cameroonian state-owned carrier Camair-Co will relaunch its regional flights on July 16, 2019. The first destination for this relaunch is Libreville, Gabon. The carrier is planning five weekly flights from Yaoundé and Douala.

Months ago, Camair-Co stopped regional flights because of various malfunctions on most of the six aircrafts in its fleet.

But, the carrier just leased a Boeing 737-500 which it intends to use to densify its flights towards regional markets and to North Cameroon, which is its main market for domestic flights.  

Some experts at Camair-Co are already questioning the profitability of such operations since the leased Boeing 737-500 is reputed for using more fuel. This will not be so good for an overindebted Camair-Co going through cashflow problems.

Salary arrears

Internal sources reveal that currently, up to two months of salary is owed to the carrier’s workers. Indeed, the sources indicate, class 1 to 8 workers have received their May 2019 salary and are expecting their salary for the month of June 2019 while class 9 to 12 workers are still expecting their salaries for May and June 2019.

According to the sources, the new management heading the carrier since May 2019 is expecting financial support from the government to pay those salary arrears. On May 22, 2019, the government promised to quickly disburse a bit more than XAF1.5 billion to boost the financially asphyxiated company that has been going through crisis since it launched operations in 2011.

Brice R.Mbodiam