The inaugural of Uganda airlines flight on a Bombardier CRJ900 to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in neighbouring Kenya lasted about 45 minutes.
The first Uganda airlines flight, initially scheduled for 11:10am local time (08:10 GMT), took to the air one hour later.
The passengers on the Uganda airlines were mainly government officials and media.
The first commercial flight is scheduled to take off from Uganda’s Entebbe International Airport on Wednesday.
Ugandans have received the airlines’ revival with pride, but also worried about how well it will do.
The old Uganda Airlines closed down following years of mismanagement, corruption and asset-stripping.
This is the latest East African country to launch a national carrier, with Rwanda Air and Air Tanzania taking to the skies in recent years.
Uganda Airlines owns two planes. Four more have been ordered, including two Airbus jets. The carrier will fly to regional destinations such as the Somali capital, Mogadishu.
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni championed the revamped airline as a symbol of national pride, calling it “a new baby”
Meawhile, Ramathan Ggoobi, an economist with the Makerere University Business School, is of the view that starting operations of the national carrier is a good idea but will not be profitable in the foreseeable future and could most likely fail unless a miracle happens.
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“It is a mistake to build infrastructure and let the managers run a non-profitable venture
Ggoobi said the government needed to carefully analyse the events that unfolded 18 years ago that included but not limited to mismanagement of the Airline connected to unnecessary government interference and uncontrollable accumulation of debts that led to the closure of Uganda Airlines in May 2001.
“…what they are now doing is promoting stubborn nationalism and trying to reclaim our turf,” Ggoobi said.
