Why Uganda Airlines is avoiding call sign QU like the plague

May 2, 2019 in Business, Companies, Travel & Tourism by Editor

When Uganda Airlines begins commercial operations in two months time, nostalgic patrons will miss one thing about the revamped flag carrier – the call-sign QU.

QU was the call-sign used by Uganda Airlines, the national carrier that was liquidated in 2001. The call-sign was bought by East African Airlines, one of two privately owned carriers that were launched soon afterwards.

Reliable sources say Uganda Airlines has applied for and is waiting for the International Air Transport Association IATA to approve the new call-sign UR for it.

Sources familiar with the operations of the new airline say  while QU is one of those legacy call-signs that would ordinarily be coveted by airlines, in Uganda’s case, it has since become too toxic to be of any commercial value  to an airline based here.

“Any aircraft that uses that call sign risks getting impounded in places where the last user is subject to outstanding obligations,” a source told 256BN.

Associating with the call sign that was last used by the defunct East African Airlines would expose the user to outstanding liabilities in places such as South Africa, Dubai and a few other jurisdictions where the last registered user airline left liabilities.

According to records, the last user of call-sign QU was East African Airlines EAA, one of the successors to Uganda Airlines that was promoted by former Makindye East legislator Hon. Benedict Mutyaba. Operating a single ex-United Airlines Boeing 737-200, EAA ceased scheduled operations just a year after its April 2002 launch.

The airline would later lose its single aircraft when a court in the Democratic Republic of Congo ordered for its auction to recover $2 million that had been awarded to a lessee.

Sources say EAA’s unceremonious exit  from commercial aviation left a trail of debts owed to service providers and regulators at the destinations it operated to. Before it went bust, EAA operated services to Nairobi, Dubai, Johannesburg, Bujumbura, Lusaka and Harare.