Dutch airliner KLM retracts civil unrest comment on Dar es Salaam

Dutch airliner KLM has retracted a civil unrest comment about Tanzania but says there is a security threat in Dar es Salaam that has forced a suspension of flights. PHOTO | AFP

By MOHAMED ISSA

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Dutch airliner KLM has retracted a civil unrest comment about Tanzania but says

there is a security threat in Dar es Salaam that has forced a suspension of flights.

The airline’s country manager for Tanzania Alexander van de Wint said that the security situation in Dar es Salaam was erroneously explained in its alert issued last Friday.

“The use of the phrase ‘civil unrest’ was wrong, for which we sincerely apologise,” Mr Wint wrote to the country’s transport minister, Prof Makame M. Mbarawa.

But he declined to go into details as to what exactly is posing a security threat in Dar.

He said the airline will resume flights to Dar es Salaam, Kilimanjaro and Zanzibar, owing to the security assurances given by the minister, but without giving an exact date.

Mr Mohamed Majid, the General Manager of Transworld Aviation Dubai in Zanzibar, said a KLM plane was in the archipelago overnight but chose not to fly to Dar es Salaam on Sunday.

Mr Majid said the passengers onboard the plane who were supposed to disembark in Dar were taken to a hotel where they spent the night.

He said the plane would instead fly to Dar es Salaam on Monday