KAMPALA — Uganda Airlines has placed its recovery in the hands of one of African aviation’s most experienced operators — and it’s a move that is paying off handsomely so far.
Seven months after Girma Wake took charge, the national carrier looks less like an airline in free fall and more like one flying, at last, to a regular schedule.
By the time Wake arrived, much of the fleet was unserviceable. Engine problems had gone unaddressed, and operating capacity had, at one point, fallen to a fraction of what the airline was supposed to deliver. Without its own maintenance base, Uganda Airlines depended on foreign third-party providers. Those relationships had soured over unpaid bills, and the work stopped – some of the reasons that forced President Museveni to relieve the former CEO Jennifer Bamuturaki of her duties. With most of the fleet grounded, there were too few aircraft to honour the published timetable.
The result was delay and cancellation on a scale that became a public joke.
In one week in December 2025, the Lagos and Abuja services were held for four days, a South Africa flight for three, Dubai for 48 hours and London for 26 hours. Delays were no longer measured in minutes. They were measured in days.
Not all of the chaos was mechanical. Aircraft were sometimes held at the gate for a late government official or other influential passenger. Commercial jets are scheduled as tightly sequenced assets: one late departure breaks the next sector, then the next. Missed air-traffic slots push an aircraft to the back of the queue. Connecting passengers miss onward flights. Hotels, meals and rebookings follow.
A late arrival can also put an aircraft into a holding pattern at the destination, burning expensive fuel while other on-time flights are given priority.
Even well-meant publicity stunts could wreck the day’s programme.
On 14 May 2023, the airline used a Bombardier CRJ900 for a Mother’s Day scenic flight for first-time flyers. The gesture was popular. The disruption was not. One aircraft taken out of its rotation can cascade through an entire day’s network.
The carrier’s image problems were not only operational.
On 26 November 2021, as a Dubai-bound flight prepared to leave Entebbe, a passenger, Paul Mubiru, walked the economy cabin with a blue polythene bag of fried grasshoppers, calling prices — a scoop for 10,000 Ugandan shillings, about three dollars. The episode invited comparisons with a roadside stall rather than an international airline, and raised an obvious question about cabin control before departure. Management’s attempt at damage control made matters worse: officials suggested that nsenene might one day appear on the inflight menu and in marketing, as if a breach of procedure were a cultural opportunity.
Chronic delays, cancellations and poor service did what bad publicity usually does. Travellers drifted away. On Entebbe–London, an Airbus A330-800neo configured for 258 seats was, at times, carrying only 15 to 48 passengers. Losses mounted. The state tightened the purse strings and began looking for different leadership.
In February 2026, President Yoweri Museveni turned to Wake — often called a principal architect of modern Ethiopian Airlines.
Wake was chief executive there from 2004 to 2011, driving Vision 2010, expanding the fleet and more than doubling passenger numbers. He later chaired the Ethiopian Airlines Group from 2022 to 2023, and earlier chaired RwandAir. He was brought in not as a ceremonial hire but as an emergency operator: consultant, acting chief executive, and the man expected to steady the company while a permanent successor is found.
At 83, and given the depth of the mess, many Ugandans doubted he would last, or that the airline would respond.
Six to seven months on, the public picture is different.
Cancellations and long delays are a thing of the past. Long-haul services that once flew almost empty — Entebbe–London and onwards towards Mumbai on the A330-800neo — are described by passengers and staff as heavily booked for both people and cargo. Regional flying has steadied. Check-in halls and gates look more orderly. Crews are more often leaving on time, sometimes early.
Flights are now departing ahead of schedule.
Cabin service and inflight entertainment have improved enough to be noticed.
That change of mood was visible when Wake appeared before Parliament’s Committee on Commissions, Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises (COSASE) with former chief executive Jennifer Bamuturaki to answer questions arising from the Auditor General’s reports on losses and governance, that happened under Bamuturaki’s tenure — some of the reasons she had to leave the job.
MPs who had come to examine failure ended up listening closely as Wake walked them through how he had tried to reopen maintenance relationships, restore aircraft to the line and impose basic operational discipline.
Girma told the MPs not to look at the young Airline as a money minting entity in these early stages.
He asserted that flying planes doesn’t make money but what brings in revenue are the auxiliary services and in this regard, he assured parliament that for Uganda Airlines to make profits quickly, it must build its own technical and human-resource capacity, develop cargo operations, invest in catering and aircraft maintenance infrastructure, expand domestic and regional connectivity, and use Entebbe as a gateway linking African passengers to international destinations.
The political nervousness has not gone away.
Wake has made clear that he does not intend to run the airline indefinitely. He first agreed to a short rescue posting; that has been stretched so he can leave behind a stronger platform. What is happening in Entebbe is a joy to behold and the prize for Uganda Airlines is now in sight.
The question that hangs among the stakeholders is, what happens when such competent old hands leave? Can the government make sure the successor and team are good enough to continue with this good story?
The post How Girma Wake steadied Uganda Airlines in seven months! appeared first on Watchdog Uganda.