By Gyagenda Semakula Zikusooka Ssajjabbi
When Uganda Airlines returned to the skies in August 2019, it was more than the relaunch of an aviation company. It was the resurrection of a national symbol. The Crane was supposed to represent competence, ambition, and Uganda’s readiness to take its place in regional and global air transport.
I vividly remember that first commercial flight of August 29, 2019 to Nairobi. There were only a few of us (I and seven other passengers), but the moment carried enormous weight. The aircraft was new, the crew were professional, the mood almost sacred in its patriotism. It felt like Uganda was attempting something serious again.
I wrote about my experience after that maiden flight, with conviction, that the Crane should be guarded jealously and that we should maintain it in that shape. I suggested that national cynicism should not be allowed to kill national possibility at birth. But history has a cruel way of testing symbolism.
Read:👉 Uganda Airlines makes two Successful Commercial flights on first day:https://www.sabasabaupdates.com/2019/08/28/1799/
Just six years later, Uganda Airlines is once again surrounded by troubling questions: operational strain, internal turbulence, financial uncertainty and constraint, and persistent public concern about governance and stewardship. The headlines may shift, but the underlying theme feels painfully familiar to many Ugandans: promising national projects too often struggle not because the dream is impossible, but because the systems meant to protect the dream are corrupt, weak, immoral and shepherded by reprehensible leadership.
The painful lesson is that launching an airline is easier than sustaining one. The inaugural flight is the simplest chapter. The real test comes in the years after the applause fades: in procurement discipline, transparent and competent leadership, corporate governance, operational efficiency, and the ability to resist capture by patronage networks. A national airline cannot survive on ceremony. It survives on discipline.
Airlines globally are among the most complex institutions to run. They require rigorous procurement systems, professional management insulated from interference, transparent accountability, and long-term financial planning. Without these, even the most modern fleet becomes an expensive monument to institutional fragility.
The question before us is larger than aviation. It is about how Uganda manages national projects. Can we build institutions that outlive individuals? Can we run public enterprises with professionalism rather than improvisation and patronage? Can national pride be matched with national discipline?
The revival of Uganda Airlines was not supposed to be a ceremonial gesture on a list of government achievements. It was supposed to be a long-term economic instrument—supporting tourism, trade, regional integration, and national identity. If it falters, the damage will echo beyond Entebbe’s runways.
As a journalist who has watched Uganda’s national journey closely, I remain convinced that Uganda Airlines can still be saved—not through rhetoric, but through reform. Through hard decisions. Through transparent governance. Through treating the airline not as a political trophy, but as a public trust. At this point, Uganda would benefit from looking beyond its borders—particularly to Ethiopian Airlines, arguably Africa’s most successful aviation story.
Ethiopian Airlines operates under conditions not radically different from Uganda’s: an African state environment, regional competition, and the pressures of global aviation. Yet it has built a carrier that is profitable, internationally respected, and strategically expansive. The difference has not been magic. The difference has been governance. Ethiopian Airlines success underscores a difficult lesson for Uganda: national carriers thrive not because they are national, but because they are competently managed.
The comparison is painful, but necessary. Ethiopia shows that an African airline can become globally competitive when institutions are protected from capture, when accountability is enforced, and when aviation is treated as a technical industry rather than just a ceremonial symbol.
What is unfolding around Uganda Airlines today should not be reduced to gossip, sectarianism, hate-speech or scandal. It is a bigger governance question. It is a national capacity question. It is a national crisis, a rotten system!
The most dangerous failures in public institutions are rarely sudden. They are gradual. They begin with small compromises: blurred oversight, questionable recruitment and decisions, tolerated inefficiencies and incompetence, and leadership cultures that prioritize self and comfort over correction. Over time, the institution becomes hollowed out, until citizens are left wondering how a national asset reached the edge again. Deplorable indeed!
Ugandans have seen this pattern before—not only with Uganda Airlines, but across public enterprises and parastatals: the slow slide from promise to paralysis. Uganda Airlines is just one of the many national misfortunes.
The tragedy is that Uganda Airlines was never merely about flying passengers. It was about tourism growth, trade connectivity, regional integration, and national pride. When such an institution falters, the cost is not only financial—it is reputational. Investors notice, competitors notice., citizens notice, leadership notices.
The question is no longer whether Uganda can launch national projects. We have proven that we can (Osukuru phosphate/fertilizer factory in Tororo, Namanve and Masaka industrial parks, Pioneer Easy Bus Company et cetera). The question is whether we can sustain them with integrity.
The Ethiopian Airline case reminds Africa that success is possible. It also reminds Uganda that failure is not inevitable—it is often institutional. If the Crane is to remain in the sky, Uganda must confront the uncomfortable truth: national institutions cannot be run on perceived patriotism alone. They require governance that is as strong as the symbolism they carry.
I remain proud to have been among Uganda Airline’s first cash-paying (commercial) passengers. But pride alone is not enough. National assets require more than celebration. They require protection from the very forces that have weakened so many African institutions: corruption, impunity, poor oversight, and the normalization of mismanagement.
Otherwise, Uganda Airlines risks becoming not the story of revival—but the story of recurrence: a national dream repeatedly reborn, repeatedly undermined, and repeatedly placed back into crisis.
The Crane belongs to the people. The Crane belongs to Ugandans!
The Writer is a Journalist/Lawyer/Church Minister.
