Uganda Airlines Registers Growth In Income.

In an audit report for the financial year ended on June 2023, there was a 62% growth in the entity’s revenue to Shs.230.4b. This was a great improvement from the Shs.141.7b that had been reported the previous financial year.

According to Uganda Airlines Chief Executive Officer Ms. Jennifer Bamuturaki, the growth was attributed to the intensive marketing strategies that had been embraced and the improved operational efficiency that had been achieved by the airlines.

However, according to the Auditor General’s report for the year ended in June 2023, the amount Shs.230.4b was 46.8% lower than the Shs.491.8b which was the target figure of the Uganda Airlines.

Furthermore, the report indicated that Uganda Airlines had failed to rise to the occasion due to challenges in direct costs of Shs.140b, and increase in losses from Shs.256.9b in 2022 to Shs.325b in 2023.

According to the report by John Muwanga the Auditor General, the major cost drivers listed were aviation fuel, pilot training,the employee allowances, salaries, and depreciation of the assets. However, the airlines had managed to secure the Mumbai and Lagos routes of the targeted routes.

With such a performance, it’s clear that the company seems to have challenges in balancing it’s income and expense records. Experts say that such companies always find it difficult to pay their operating and debt expenses.

The report also indicated a challenge of unrealistic gains of Shs.59b which was intended in securing new routes of Lagos, Mumbai, Guangzhou, Jeddah and London before the end of the June 2023 financial year.

Failure to acquire these routes costed the corporation as it had targeted to benefit from the increase in the passenger numbers, average route fare per passenger, revenue, total hours of operation per aircraft, and number of routes average factor amon others. This made it fail to raise the projected Shs. 491.8b in the financial year.

Such records leave a question whether the corporation will be in position to archive it’s plan of turning profitable come 2027 and settling at least 85% of it’s expenses.