Air Zimbabwe’s return to London is a welcome national moment. Yet the undisclosed cost of the Plus Ultra agreement, the continued safety restrictions on the national carrier and the legal controversy surrounding its Spanish partner demand more than ceremonial applause.
By Dr Gift Mawire
The return of a direct Air Zimbabwe service between Harare and London should be welcomed. After more than fourteen years, Zimbabweans can once again travel between the two cities without surrendering additional hours to connections through Johannesburg, Addis Ababa, Nairobi, Doha or Dubai. The route can reconnect families, support tourism, move cargo and strengthen the country’s commercial relationship with one of its largest diaspora communities.
However, the most important fact about the service is not displayed prominently on the aircraft’s freshly painted exterior. Air Zimbabwe has returned to London using an aircraft, crew, maintenance system and insurance supplied by the Spanish airline Plus Ultra Líneas Aéreas. The arrangement is a 13-month Aircraft, Crew, Maintenance and Insurance agreement, commonly known as an ACMI or wet lease. Under the announced structure, Plus Ultra is the technical operator while Air Zimbabwe provides the brand, flight code and commercial access to the route.
There is nothing inherently suspicious about wet leasing. It is an established aviation practice used by airlines that need additional capacity, wish to launch a route quickly or temporarily lack suitable aircraft. In Air Zimbabwe’s circumstances, it may be the only practical way to restore the London connection without first acquiring and certifying a long-haul fleet.
Nevertheless, a practical arrangement is not automatically a prudent one. The aircraft may carry Zimbabwe’s colours, but the public still does not know the full price attached to its wings.
A figure of approximately US$1.2 million per month has circulated widely in public commentary about the agreement. That would produce a base commitment of US$15.6 million over 13 months. Yet neither Air Zimbabwe, Mutapa Investment Fund nor Plus Ultra has publicly released the contract confirming this amount or explaining what it includes. The figure must therefore be treated as an estimate rather than an established contractual fact. The complete cost may be lower, similar or substantially higher, depending on the payment structure and the allocation of operating expenses.
This distinction matters because ACMI is not the same as an all-inclusive holiday package. The letters cover the aircraft, crew, maintenance and insurance, but traditional wet-lease arrangements often leave the hiring airline responsible for fuel, airport charges, navigation fees, ground handling, catering and other commercial expenses. The precise allocation can be altered by negotiation, but only the contract can tell us what Air Zimbabwe has actually accepted.
This creates two very different financial possibilities. If the estimated US$1.2 million monthly payment genuinely includes the aircraft, crews, maintenance, insurance and fuel, then the agreement may have been secured on unusually favourable terms. If, however, that amount is only the fixed ACMI charge, with fuel and other services billed separately, the financial exposure could become much larger.
The route is expected to operate three return flights each week using an Airbus A330 configured with approximately 302 seats. Maintaining that schedule for 13 months would produce roughly 169 return journeys, or 338 individual flight sectors, and more than 100,000 one-way seat opportunities.
At a base contract cost of US$15.6 million, the Plus Ultra payment alone would average about US$92,000 for each return operation. It would represent approximately US$153 for every available one-way seat if every seat were sold, or about US$191 for every passenger carried at an 80 per cent load factor. None of those calculations includes additional expenses unless the contract explicitly places them within the monthly fee.
Fuel is the largest uncertainty. The actual consumption of an Airbus A330 depends on the particular aircraft, payload, engines, weather, routing and operating conditions. A long-haul service between Harare and Gatwick could nevertheless consume fuel worth tens of thousands of United States dollars on each sector. At the time of writing, IATA’s global refinery benchmark for jet fuel stood at US$149.40 per barrel after a sharp weekly increase. That is a benchmark rather than the price necessarily paid by Plus Ultra or Air Zimbabwe, but it illustrates the scale and volatility of the exposure.
A reasonable scenario analysis suggests that fuel across the 13-month operation could run into tens of millions of dollars if it is not included in the monthly payment. Airport charges, ground handling, air-navigation fees, catering, ticket-distribution costs, broker commissions, passenger assistance and disruption reserves would increase the bill further. Depending on which party carries these expenses, the total route commitment could plausibly move from the reported base of US$15.6 million towards US$40 million or more.
That is not a declaration that the contract costs US$40 million. It is an illustration of the financial difference between an all-inclusive arrangement and a base wet-lease payment. Without the contract, no responsible commentator can state the true figure with certainty. But the inability to determine the cost is itself the governance problem. A state-owned airline should not make the public reconstruct a major commercial commitment from press reports, market benchmarks and assumptions.
The route’s viability will ultimately depend on more than filling seats. Air Zimbabwe must generate enough revenue to cover the lease, taxes, operating expenses and commercial overheads throughout the year, not merely during the excitement of the launch or the Christmas travel season.
At an 80 per cent load factor, the service could carry approximately 81,000 passenger journeys during the 13 months. If the relevant cost were only the estimated US$15.6 million base payment, the required revenue contribution per passenger would appear manageable. If the wider route cost moved closer to US$40 million, the average revenue requirement would approach US$490 per passenger before some taxes and overheads were considered.
Business-class fares, cargo, excess baggage and other ancillary services may improve the economics. The Zimbabwean diaspora in Britain is substantial, and a direct service provides genuine convenience. Many passengers may pay a reasonable premium to avoid lengthy connections and reduce the risk of missed flights or delayed baggage.
Yet a large diaspora is not a business plan. Commercial viability requires detailed assumptions about average fares, seasonal demand, business-class occupancy, cargo volumes, exchange-rate risk and the number of seats that must be sold on every flight. The public has not been shown these assumptions.
Passengers departing from Gatwick also pay significant Air Passenger Duty. For the 2026–27 tax year, the reduced rate for an economy passenger travelling to a Band B destination is £102, while the standard rate applicable to higher travel classes is £244. These amounts form part of the ticket price but are remitted to the British government rather than retained as airline revenue.
This means an advertised fare cannot be treated as income available to cover the aircraft. Taxes, airport charges, card fees, commissions and passenger-service costs must first be deducted. The commercially meaningful figure is not simply the ticket price but the net yield retained by the airline after these obligations.
There is also a deeper institutional question. Air Zimbabwe remains subject to the United Kingdom’s Air Safety List. The British government states that airlines on the list have failed to demonstrate compliance with the relevant international safety standards and are consequently prohibited from operating their own commercial services into, out of or within the UK. The rules nevertheless allow a restricted airline to exercise its traffic rights using a wet-leased aircraft from an operator that satisfies the required standards.
The London service is therefore possible because Plus Ultra, not Air Zimbabwe, is technically operating the aircraft. This may be entirely lawful, but it should not be misrepresented as proof that Air Zimbabwe has resolved the deficiencies that prevent it from serving Britain independently.
The national airline has returned to London, but it has returned on borrowed wings.
That may be an acceptable bridge towards recovery, provided the bridge leads somewhere. During these 13 months, Air Zimbabwe should strengthen its safety systems, restore technical capacity, train and retain Zimbabwean crews, improve governance, and develop a financially sustainable fleet strategy. If the agreement ends with the airline in the same institutional position in which it began, the route will have delivered connectivity but not rehabilitation.
The choice of Plus Ultra adds another layer of concern. On 24 July 2026, Plus Ultra’s president, Julio Martínez Sola, and chief executive, Roberto Roselli, resigned while remaining under investigation in Spain over matters connected to the airline’s €53 million pandemic-era state rescue. Spanish reporting states that they had been arrested in December 2025 and later released. The investigation includes allegations involving suspected money laundering, commissions and the use of rescue funds. No conviction has been reported, and all persons concerned remain entitled to the presumption of innocence.
This does not prove wrongdoing in the Air Zimbabwe agreement, nor does it automatically make Plus Ultra unsafe or incapable of operating the route. However, it heightens the importance of due diligence. Before entering a major state-backed contract, Air Zimbabwe and Mutapa Investment Fund should have examined Plus Ultra’s beneficial ownership, financial stability, banking relationships, litigation exposure and contingency arrangements.
The resignation of senior executives does not automatically terminate an airline’s contracts. But leadership upheaval, loan-repayment difficulties or restrictions on banking and insurance could create operational risk. Air Zimbabwe must therefore have strong contractual rights to demand a replacement aircraft, protect advance payments, terminate the agreement in defined circumstances and ensure that passengers are assisted if the service is disrupted.
The public should also know whether Plus Ultra was selected through a competitive procurement process. It should know which other ACMI operators were considered, what evaluation criteria were applied and whether any intermediary received a commission. Chapman Freeborn has publicly described its role in arranging the operational capacity, but the value and structure of any brokerage payment have not been disclosed.
Commercial confidentiality is legitimate, but it is not limitless. Air Zimbabwe need not publish information that would genuinely damage its competitive position. It should, however, disclose the broad financial value of the contract, the main responsibilities of each party, the existence of any public guarantee, the procurement method and the protections available if Plus Ultra cannot perform.
Those are not demands from people who want the route to fail. They are the ordinary requirements of accountability where a state-owned company commits potentially substantial public resources.
Zimbabweans should celebrate the convenience of direct flights to London. They should support the route when it is safe, reliable and competitively priced. The country should not permanently surrender a valuable market to foreign airlines whose hubs capture Zimbabwean passengers and spending.
But patriotism cannot require silence about the bill.
For too long, Zimbabwean public policy has placed ceremony ahead of accounting. Projects are launched with speeches, music and flags, while questions about procurement and sustainability are postponed. By the time the costs become visible, the officials responsible have moved elsewhere and the public is left carrying the liability.
The Harare–London route must not follow that familiar flight path. It should be judged not only by the applause at Gatwick but by its financial performance, operational reliability and contribution to the long-term recovery of Air Zimbabwe.
The flag is ours. The route is valuable. The public is entitled to celebrate both.
It is also entitled to know who is paying for the wings, what those wings truly cost and whether Air Zimbabwe will be able to fly on its own when the lease comes to an end.
Patriotism is not the suspension of arithmetic.
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