Regional Air at 25 Years

A Quarter of a Century of Aviation Success

1997 - 2022

Nelson Mandela, the Nobel laureate and former South African President, flew in a three-year-old airline in 2000 during one of his trips to

Tanzania. It was not just a matter of happenstance that the world-revered Mandela, who passed on in 2013, chose Regional Air. “Regional Air, just like its sister airlines, Airkenya and Aerolink, has a strict safety policy,” says Captain

Hamza Mwapachu, the airline’s

General Manager. It is this safety-first policy that has seen the airline serve dignitaries and A-list passengers over the years, including the former United

Nations Secretary-General Kofi

Annan, The President of Finland

Mrs Tarja Kaarina Halonen, His

Highness the Aga Khan and Sir David

Attenborough.

Humble beginnings

Regional Air was the first airline to provide scheduled flights in the East African country of Tanzania. The airline started its operation in 1997 with one pilot, the Arusha-born Captain Iris McCallum, and one aircraft, a Piper PA31T3 T1040 Turboprop.

Transitioning from the skies to the office was an uphill task that Captain Iris was ready to take in her stride. That meant training under Anna Nzomo, the then Chief Reservations Officer at Airkenya, for the much-needed knowledge in airline operations. This extended to the operation of the Piper aircraft under the stewardship of Captain Geoff Price, the then Chief Pilot at Airkenya.

Before joining Regional Air, she had briefly worked with Airkenya back in 1980, when she was awarded the Guinness Stout Effort Award for Bravery. "Whilst flying a Cessna 401, my left engine caught fire on the way to Bura in the Northern part of Kenya," Captain Iris explains the background of her award. She landed the aircraft on a murram road, and got all the passengers, herself included, out safely. She moved on to the humanitarian sector, flying for United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) and the International Red Cross.

Teething Challenges

The then-nascent airline’s initial team comprised heavyweights in Tanzania's aviation space. Captain Iris headed the team as the General Manager. She recruited Captain Fred Lawuo as the Chief Pilot, Captain Godfrey Mwella, and Captain Dave Smith, who also trained the ground staff. Brown Francis, who was working at the meteorology department in the airport, took on the role of Chief Operations.

The team secured an office on the 7th floor of the International Arusha

Years

& Beyond

Cpt. Hamza Mwapachu General Manager, Regional Air

Conference Centre (IACC) in Arusha town. But the building experienced prolonged electricity outages such that everything was almost always out of order, including the lifts. The alternative access to their office was the staircase – hundreds of steps! They later moved to an office located at the Cooper Motor Company and installed a generator to ease their operations.

As soon as they registered their only aircraft with the Tanzania Civil Aviation and obtained their Air Operator Certificate, Captain Iris hit the streets. She walked from door to door of every shop advertising safaris around Tanzania in search of clients. The reception was cold at first – remember, it was a period dominated by charter flight services. So a scheduled flight service seemed like a pipe dream.

Captain Iris had to get innovative. She promised to offer the service in full even if the travel wholesalers booked just one passenger. What played to their advantage was the speed of their aircraft - it could fly to Seronera Airstrip in the Serengeti from Arusha, a flying distance of 224 km (139 miles), in 30 minutes!

The airline’s maiden flight was on 19th June 1997 - circling from Arusha to Kilimanjaro to Ngorongoro Crater and back to Arusha. In its first two weeks of operation, the airline flew 13.1 hours. These increased to 56 hours in July, having chartered for a few hunting companies. She had the market hooked.

More business necessitated additional aircraft. A Cessna Caravan B was the second aircraft to join the fleet on 19th July 1997. A year later, the airline procured an 18-seater Twin Otter on 8th January 1998. Captain Ian Gregory, then working at Airkenya, joined the crew since he was the most experienced on the Twin Otter, having flown them solidly for about ten years. It is the only airline to own and operate this aircraft commercially in Tanzania to date.

Over time, it secured contracts from multi-national conglomerates such as Anglo American, BP, Resolute Mining and Abbot Laboratories.

It later expanded its fleet with the addition of a King Air B200 to serve their high-end clientele.

Captain Iris credits the success of Regional Air to the staff. "Our biggest challenges when flying in Tanzania are the airstrips in the rainy season. They become extremely wet and slippery and of course, you have the challenges of trying to land during the migration when the Wildebeest won’t give way for you. The migration brings in huge flocks of birds of

FROM TOP CLOCKWISE: Regional Air’s first aircraft; Former President of Tanzania Jakaya Kikwete welcoming former UN Secretary-General the late Kofi Annan in Arusha in 1999; Former President of South Africa the late Nelson Mandela at Ngara Refugee camp in Tanzania in 2000 after flying Regional Air; Cpt Iris receiving the Guinness Stout Effort Award in 1980.

prey which are also hazardous to aircraft. I was very happy with my flight crew of Captain Fred Lawuo and Captain Godfrey Mwella who were wonderfully experienced with the conditions and were also very diplomatic with passengers”. Captain Iris continues, "I remember Mr John Buckley, the then the Managing Director at AirKenya, giving me the best advice. He told me to employ people who would make me look good. We laughed at that, but it is so true. I found the best of staff and wonderful camaraderie between all of us, and most of all, trust. It is most rewarding to see the youngsters you employed and entrusted aircraft and passengers move to international airlines. The same applies to the reservations staff, either holding senior positions or ventured into business. A large part of one’s life is building other people. Regional Air taught me the value and privilege of that."

Captain Iris McCallum steered Regional Air Services as the General Manager from its inception until she retired in 2005.

Business re-engineering

Captain Hamza Mwapachu, one of the lucky few to work under Captain Cuddles, as they affectionately refer to Captain Iris, was elected to fill her big shoes.

There was a period of intense volatility in tourism when terrorism and new airlines into the market brought great uncertainty to

Cpt Iris and Cpt Hamza with the President of Finland in 2003

Regional Air’s Twin Otter Aircraft

Regional Air.

“We rebounded our performance in 2012 through careful route analysis and cost re-structuring,” says Captain Mwapachu.

The airline also procured modern aircraft, becoming the first to own and operate a 37-seater Dash 8.

After successfully starting the third airline of the group, Aerolink Uganda, Anne Hiri joined the Regional Air management team in a dual capacity of Marketing Manager and Head of Operations. Always the trendsetter, the airline repositioned itself to offer a unique and popular service - the Bush to Beach safari packages, their best-seller to date. It relied heftily on its flexibility to navigate through, and thrive during the COVID-19 pandemic. It prides itself as the only airline to seamlessly connect passengers to Kenya with its sister airline, Airkenya.

As it celebrates its silver anniversary, Regional Air is well poised to weather the storms as it continues to fly its customers to their destinations in the years to come.

Regional Air's King Air flying out of Arusha in the early days Regional Air's Cessna Grand Caravan