Africa-Press – Angola. The Angolan government has said it will soon resume negotiations with the American aircraft industry Boeing for airplanes’ purchase for Angola Airlines, President João Lourenço said Monday during a Business Roundtable with American businesspeople.
The Angolan Head of State, who was coy on concrete dates or possible amounts of the contract, said the negotiations had already started, but were further suspended due to some economic constraints.
“Still at the beginning of this mandate, we started to negotiate with Boeing the purchase of more aircraft, but at the time we found a constraint that was related to debt limits. Angola’s public debt was very large”, Lourenço explained.
According to the Angolan Head of State, at the time, the international financial institutions asked the Angolan authorities to be careful not to exceed the public debt limits.
Since the hurdle has been overcome, the President said, there are conditions to negotiate again with Boeing for the purchase of new aircraft and renew the fleet of the Angolan flagship carrier (TAAG).
Currently, the TAAG fleet is estimated to be twenty-one aircraft, of which six Dash 8-Q400 models, seven Boeing 737-700, three Boeing 777-200 and five Boeing 777-300.
According to João Lourenço, the idea of reinforcing the company’s fleet is due, among other factors, to the start of operations of the new Luanda International Airport in 2023.
For the president, the expansion of the new airport justifies the reinforcement of TAAG’s fleet, which has exclusively used Boeing aircraft for long-haul flights for several decades.
The Angolan President also spoke of the importance of the company’s fleet to be in conformity with the size of the new airport.
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