• Air Zimbabwe recorded an US$11.6 million loss before tax in 2024 while current liabilities exceeded current assets by US$26 million
• Zimbabwe’s air passenger traffic rose to 2.53 million in 2025 and increased another 7.1% in the first half of 2026
• The proposed US$775.5 million fleet programme now has to be justified by route level utilisation, yields and cash generation rather than passenger growth alone

Harare- One of the more revealing findings in the latest Auditor General report is that Air Zimbabwe can produce a clean set of accounts and still remain economically fragile. The Auditor General issued an unmodified opinion on the national carrier’s 2024 financial statements, meaning the accounts fairly presented its financial position. Behind that clean opinion sat an US$11.6 million loss before tax, wider than US$10.4 million a year earlier, and current liabilities exceeding current assets by US$26 million. The auditor consequently raised material uncertainty over Air Zimbabwe’s ability to continue as a going concern.

That financial position has become more consequential as Zimbabwe’s aviation market expands around the airline. Passenger movements through the country’s airports increased 10% to 2.53 million in 2025 from 2.29 million a year earlier. International passenger traffic reached 2.17 million while domestic traffic increased 15% to 357,133 passengers. Growth continued during the first half of 2026, when airports handled 1.19 million passengers, up 7.1% from 1.11 million in the corresponding period.

Air Zimbabwe is therefore attempting its latest turnaround inside an aviation market already producing additional passengers, and that changes the diagnosis.

For years, the airline’s weakness could be discussed alongside Zimbabwe’s economic crisis, shrinking disposable incomes, limited tourism flows, sanctions, an ageing fleet and the collapse of international routes. The current aviation numbers provide a cleaner commercial environment against which management can now be judged. More people are flying, domestic travel is expanding, international passenger volumes remain substantially larger, and Harare has also regained a direct London service after a 14 year absence.

The unresolved issue is how much of that market Air Zimbabwe can convert into profitable traffic. The distinction is central to Mutapa Investment Fund’s proposed investment. Air Zimbabwe’s strategic plan envisages acquiring six aircraft over three years for US$775.5 million. Two aircraft costing US$49 million each are intended for domestic operations, two regional aircraft are priced at US$101 million each and two long haul aircraft carry an estimated combined cost of US$450 million. The programme is intended to replace ageing equipment and rebuild domestic, regional and international capacity.

US$775.5 million is therefore being contemplated for a company whose latest audited position contained an US$11.6 million annual loss and a US$26 million working capital deficit. That does not make fleet renewal economically indefensible. Ageing aircraft can produce high maintenance costs, poor utilisation, cancellations and unreliable schedules. Newer aircraft can improve fuel efficiency and availability while allowing the airline to open routes that existing equipment cannot reliably serve.

The size of the commitment changes the burden of proof. Air Zimbabwe needs to establish that route economics can absorb the aircraft before Mutapa places the aircraft onto the balance sheet. The revived Harare to London route provides an unusually useful way to establish that evidence.

Air Zimbabwe returned to London Gatwick on July 22 using a 302 seat Airbus A330-300 supplied by Spanish carrier Plus Ultra under an Aircraft, Crew, Maintenance and Insurance arrangement. Plus Ultra supplies the aircraft, crew, maintenance and insurance while Air Zimbabwe manages ticket sales and the commercial operation. The airline currently operates three frequencies each week.

Commercially, that structure places a large part of the aircraft operating platform outside Air Zimbabwe while leaving the national carrier responsible for finding passengers and monetising the route. That makes London a better turnaround experiment than immediate aircraft ownership.

Management can now establish the real size of direct Zimbabwe to United Kingdom demand, the fares passengers are willing to pay, the seasonality of that demand, the proportion of business class traffic, cargo contribution, distribution costs and the load factors required for the service to produce cash.

The first returning flight carried 165 passengers on the 302 seat aircraft. Air Zimbabwe also said 1,479 bookings had been confirmed and more than 30 tonnes of cargo secured during the route’s initial period. Those early numbers are too narrow to establish the profitability of a long haul service. They are precisely the information that should now be accumulated before a US$225 million wide body purchase is approved.

Three weekly London rotations will eventually provide Mutapa with something more valuable than a launch ceremony, they will provide route level evidence.

A sustained service can establish average load factors across peak and off peak months, ticket yield, premium cabin demand, cargo revenue, passenger acquisition costs and cash contribution after lease charges. Management can then compare those economics with the financing, depreciation, maintenance reserves and utilisation requirements associated with owning an aircraft.

That comparison should determine the long haul procurement decision. Buying a wide body creates a large fixed capital commitment. Air Zimbabwe would then need to keep that aircraft productively employed across the year, including periods when London demand weakens. Leasing carries its own cost, although the current structure allows the airline to prove a market before accepting the balance sheet risk attached to ownership.

Mutapa should therefore use London as a capital gate.

A long haul purchase should follow evidence that the route can sustain acceptable yields and utilisation across a full operating cycle. If the economics remain attractive under a lease and improve sufficiently under ownership, acquiring an aircraft becomes defensible. If the route requires persistent shareholder support even before ownership costs are introduced, purchasing the aircraft would convert an operating problem into a much larger capital problem.

The same discipline applies to domestic expansion. Zimbabwe recorded 357,133 domestic passengers in 2025. That was 15% higher than the previous year and establishes a growing base for internal aviation. Domestic passengers still represent a relatively small portion of the 2.53 million total airport movements.

The proposed US$98 million commitment to two domestic aircraft consequently requires careful route design.

Harare, Victoria Falls and Bulawayo carry obvious economic density through business, tourism and connecting international traffic. Routes into thinner markets will need a different threshold. Aircraft can generate strong national connectivity benefits without achieving the same commercial returns as dense trunk routes.

Air Zimbabwe and Mutapa need to separate those objectives.

Where Government wants connectivity to a destination whose passenger volumes cannot support commercial economics, the cost of that public service mandate should be identified explicitly. Where Air Zimbabwe deploys aircraft on commercially viable routes, those routes should be expected to generate returns comparable with alternative uses of Mutapa capital.

Without that distinction, losses created by public policy obligations can become mixed with losses created by weak airline execution.

The Auditor General’s findings already show why cash discipline cannot remain secondary.

Air Zimbabwe was unable to settle statutory obligations amounting to US$20,498 at the end of 2024 because the airline was not generating sufficient cash. Management attributed the delays to liquidity constraints and said measures were being implemented to improve revenue inflows.

The amount itself is modest for an airline, and the inability to settle it is more informative. An airline planning hundreds of millions of dollars in aircraft investment should be producing enough operating liquidity to settle routine statutory obligations. Failure at that level places greater scrutiny on the mechanisms through which a much larger fleet would be financed, maintained and operated.

The audit follow up record adds to that concern. The Auditor General followed five findings from Air Zimbabwe’s previous reports. Only one had been fully addressed. Three were partially addressed and one remained unresolved. The unresolved finding involved an investment property that had not been maintained and remained uninhabitable. Air Zimbabwe had secured title to three properties while title for another 16 was still being pursued.

Those findings are outside the cockpit, though they belong inside the turnaround. A capital intensive airline needs its non aircraft assets working as well. Property that cannot generate rent, uncertain asset ownership and incomplete audit remediation consume financial capacity that should ultimately support aviation operations.

Financial visibility is also behind the pace of the turnaround. Air Zimbabwe’s 2025 financial statements had not been submitted for audit as at June 24, 2026. The latest Auditor General assessment therefore reaches only December 2024, even as the company enters a materially different operating environment in 2026.

That creates an information problem ahead of major capital deployment. Mutapa should have current 2025 audited numbers before committing to the next material aircraft acquisition. By the time long haul ownership is considered, it should also have several months of London route economics and current 2026 management accounts.

The capital requirement is too large to be allocated using stale financial visibility. This is where Air Zimbabwe fits into Mutapa’s broader portfolio problem. Mutapa says its portfolio requires more than US$10 billion of recapitalisation across energy, mining, transport, telecommunications and other state assets. The Fund has already mobilised about US$1 billion while managing companies with a gross asset value of roughly US$16 billion.

Air Zimbabwe’s US$775.5 million aircraft programme would therefore absorb a meaningful amount of capital in a portfolio where electricity, rail and other strategic infrastructure are also competing for funding.

The airline has to earn priority. The case cannot rest only on the argument that Zimbabwe needs a national carrier. Zimbabwe needs aviation connectivity. The expanding passenger market demonstrates that private and foreign carriers will participate where route economics are attractive. The commercial case for Air Zimbabwe has to go further and establish what additional economic value state ownership creates relative to the amount of capital required.

That value can exist. A viable national airline can support tourism, trade, cargo, diaspora travel and regional connectivity. It can also preserve direct links that foreign carriers may withdraw when their own network priorities change.

Those benefits still have a price. Mutapa’s job is to determine whether Air Zimbabwe can provide them at a cost the portfolio can defend. The expanding market should make that assessment easier.

If the airline can capture a rising share of that demand at commercially viable fares, keep aircraft highly utilised and convert route growth into cash, Mutapa will have a defensible case for progressively owning more of the fleet. If passenger traffic continues growing around Air Zimbabwe while losses and working capital pressure persist, the conclusion becomes considerably harder.

Zimbabwe will have demonstrated that it has an aviation market, and Air Zimbabwe will still have to demonstrate that it deserves US$775.5 million of capital to serve it.

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