Camair-Co DG breaks silence after crisis

The Director General of the Cameroon Airlines Corporation (Camair-Co), Jean-Paul Nana Sandjo, has commented on the crisis witnessed by the airline.

He broke the silence to the Pan-African journal, Jeune Afrique, after the take-off of more than 200 passengers to Paris (France).on Tuesday.

The latter had threatened to burn down the Camair-Co Agency in Yaoundé, to express their anger at multiple cancellations of flights granted by the company since August 25, 2015.

Jean-Paul Nana Sandjo noted that this situation happened "at the wrong time. The flagship of the company, the Boeing 767-300 ER known as Le Dja, which ensures the long-haul flights was blocked for several days in Perpignan (in the South of France) pending the replacement of a faulty engine.

"The unavailability of this air craft, with 15 stopovers, has a significant effect in this holiday period", wrote Jeune Afrique.

The Pan-African weekly indicated that at the same time, two other aircraft of Camair-Co including Boeing 737 - 700 acquired in leasing, have been requisitioned for a few days for the carriage of 4500 Cameroonian pilgrims travelling to Mecca.

To make things worse, one of the aircraft has gone for maintenance, meanwhile rotations are not over. To quickly resolve the situation, Nana Sandjo indicated that he leased two Airbus A330. One arrived on Monday September 7 in Douala with passengers blocked in Paris and took off Tuesday with travellers from Douala and Yaoundé. The second will be to complete rotations of the Hajj which theoretically ends on September 10.

The Director of Camair-Co promised a return to normal with the resumption of the activities of the Dja. Focused on communication which decried the recent incidents, Jean-Paul Nana Sandjo explained: "when a device is unavailable, we have no solution locally. There is need to find an available aircraft, negotiate and ensure the stagecoaches. It unfortunately takes some time which cannot be specified to the public."