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KAMPALA — When Ethiopian aviation veteran Girma Wake walked into the parliamentary chambers to face the Committee on Commissions, Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises (COSASE), he did not offer bureaucratic platitudes. Instead, the 83-year-old interim chief executive delivered an unvarnished post-mortem of an airline that had teetered on the edge of total operational collapse.
Appointed in February 2026 by President Yoweri Museveni following the abrupt ouster of former CEO Jenifer Bamuturaki, Wake took the helm of a national carrier whose widebody fleet was practically paralyzed, its vendor relationships severed, and roughly 80% of its passenger-carrying capacity wiped out.
The Anatomy of an Operational Grounding
Upon his arrival on February 17, Wake uncovered an equipment crisis far deeper than public disclosures had suggested. While Uganda Airlines nominally possessed a fleet of seven aircraft—four Bombardier CRJ900s, two Airbus A330-800neo widebodies, and one leased Airbus A320—most of its flying capacity sat dormant on the tarmac.
Nominal Fleet (7 Aircraft):
├── 4x Bombardier CRJ900 (1 Grounded since Nov 2025; engine maintenance backlog)
├── 2x Airbus A330-800neo (1 Fully grounded; 1 restricted by borescope checks)
└── 1x Wet-Leased Airbus A320 (High-cost interim wet lease)
Actual Impact: ~80% of total passenger seat capacity grounded within 30 days of takeover.
The airline’s long-haul flagship service was in freefall. One CRJ900 had been grounded since November 2025 due to engine failure, and one A330 lacked an engine entirely. Within four weeks of Wake’s arrival, borescope inspections on the second A330 revealed severe hour limitations on its remaining engine, forcing it out of service as well.
To prevent the airline from vanishing from lucrative international corridors to London Heathrow and Mumbai, engineers resorted to cannibalization: technicians stripped a working engine from one disabled A330 and fitted it onto the other. A parallel engine-robbing exercise took place across the CRJ900 regional fleet to keep minimal regional flights active.
The $9 Million Rolls-Royce Showdown
The grounding of the flagship Airbus A330s stemmed directly from severed vendor relations. Uganda Airlines held a total-care maintenance contract with Rolls-Royce for the Trent 7000 engines powering its A330s. Due to prolonged cash flow shortages under previous management, payments had ceased.
In October 2025, Rolls-Royce formally terminated the agreement—cutting off technical support, spare components, and maintenance services. Although the Ugandan government subsequently remitted partial payments, the engine giant initially refused to resume work on the grounded powerplants.
Wake spearheaded intense negotiations, leveraging executive relationships and bringing Airbus into the room to broker a truce:
- Debt Settlement: Uganda Airlines paid down approximately $9 million in back arrears to settle outstanding claims.
- Capital Outlay: The carrier purchased a dedicated spare engine outright to maintain minimal flight schedules.
- Overhaul Pipeline: Rolls-Royce agreed to restore maintenance coverage. The two removed Trent 7000 engines were dismounted and shipped to Rolls-Royce’s Singapore overhaul base.
Because engine overhauls require 120 to 125 days, Wake informed lawmakers that the second grounded A330 is projected to return to service between January and February 2027. Once operational, the sister aircraft will rotate into maintenance, enabling a fully restored, two-aircraft widebody operation by March 2027.
Slashing Overhead: Moving from Wet to Dry Leases
Wake immediately attacked the carrier’s unsustainable cost structure by overhauling its leasing framework. The airline allowed an expensive wet-lease agreement on an Airbus A320 to lapse, substituting it with a temporary Boeing 737 at substantially lower charter rates.
| Lease Dimension | Wet Lease (ACMI) | Dry Lease (Target Model) |
| Inclusions | Aircraft, Complete Crew, Maintenance, Hull Insurance | Aircraft hull only |
| Cost Profile | High hourly premium; capital flight to foreign operators | Substantially lower baseline rental costs |
| Operational Control | Outsourced flight operations and crewing | In-house Ugandan pilots, cabin crew, and ground teams |
| Prerequisites | Minimal local regulatory oversight needed | Requires UCAA aircraft type certification & inspector training |
The airline aims to transition its interim Boeing 737 capacity from a wet lease to a dry lease by November. To resolve the regulatory bottleneck, Boeing is funding and conducting type-certification training for Uganda Civil Aviation Authority (UCAA) airworthiness inspectors and Uganda Airlines personnel.
Long-Term Fleet Overhaul: The Boeing Commitment
Addressing questions regarding the carrier’s future trajectory, Wake argued that an airline cannot survive without planning a decade in advance. Backed by the government, Uganda Airlines signed commitments for 8 factory-new Boeing aircraft:
- 4 × Boeing 737 MAX: Scheduled for delivery in 2032 to anchor regional trunk routes across Africa.
- 4 × Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners: Slated for delivery in 2033 to form the backbone of next-generation intercontinental routes.
Wake cautioned that securing 2032 and 2033 delivery slots requires market preparation today, noting that the intervening six years must focus on developing sustainable feeder traffic rather than premature long-haul route launches.
Network Restructuring: Making Entebbe a Viable Hub
Wake laid out the basic economic realities of long-haul aviation for the committee, pointing out the stark contrast in operating costs:
$$\text{Widebody Block-Hour Cost: } \$18,000 – \$20,000 \quad \gg \quad \text{Narrowbody Feeder Cost: } \$2,000 – \$3,000$$
Because widebodies cannot break even solely on point-to-point origin-and-destination traffic out of Kampala, Entebbe International Airport (EBB) is being reconfigured into a transfer bank hub:
[West Africa: Accra (Oct 27)] ──┐
[East Africa: Kigali (Nov)] ──┼──▶ [Entebbe Hub (EBB)] ──▶ [London Heathrow (LHR)]
[Southern Africa: Harare/JNB] ──┘ [Mumbai (BOM)]
Wake presented flight data demonstrating the model’s initial traction: on a single feeder flight from Harare carrying 80 passengers, 44 travelers connected directly through Entebbe onward to Mumbai without clearing Ugandan immigration. Similar transfer flows are being scaled from Nigeria and South Africa.
External restrictions have temporarily curbed elements of this expansion. Direct services to Kinshasa and Dubai remain suspended due to regional conflicts and UAE-imposed visa rules linked to Ebola health screenings, though Wake confirmed both routes will resume immediately once restrictions lift.
Human Capital and the 2030 Horizon
Appearing alongside Bamuturaki before COSASE, Wake also addressed parliamentary concerns regarding wrongful employee terminations and financial leakages identified in Auditor General reports.
While ruling out mass reinstatements for individuals dismissed over financial improprieties under previous management, Wake firmly rejected mass layoffs. Instead, he defended aggressive targeted recruitment for pilots, aircraft engineers, and commercial sales specialists, arguing that revenue shortfalls stemmed directly from an understaffed commercial arm unable to sell capacity.
Drawing on his six decades in the cockpit and the boardroom—having transformed Ethiopian Airlines into Africa’s largest carrier and guided RwandAir’s early growth—Wake projected that Uganda Airlines could reach financial break-even by 2030 or 2031, provided structural discipline, hub synchronization, and fleet investments remain intact.
