British Airways flew out of Harare international airport yesterday, ending 62 years of service. The London-bound BA152 left with 200 passengers aboard the Boeing 777 without any acknowledgement of the occasion. The captain of the incoming flight from London had remarked over the intercom at how sad he felt not to be able to fly in and out of Harare any more.

Last month BA, the last foreign long-haul airline left in Zimbabwe, announced that it was ending its Harare service because it had been making “a considerable loss” that it could no longer sustain. The airline’s passenger numbers began to shrink in 2000 when President Mugabe launched his violent dispossession of white farmers.

“BA’s withdrawal is a major blow to what’s left of tourism,” said a tour company operator requesting anonymity. “Air Zimbabwe [the state-owned airline] cannot make up the numbers that BA was carrying. That means people will have to fly here via South Africa or one of the other neighbouring countries, and having to make multiple stopovers is a severe deterrent to travellers.”

In 1999 Harare airport was crowded with the emblems of 18 foreign airlines with Lufthansa, Air France and TAP Portugal also linking directly to Europe. BA was flying four consistently packed Boeing 747 jumbo jets to Harare four times a week.

In 2001 the service was cut to three weekly flights, in Boeing 777s, which carry half the passenger load. Now a handful of African carriers are left servicing regional routes.

Travel agents were told last week that one of them, Ethiopian Airlines, was also terminating its Harare service to East Africa. Pilots on cargo carriers were also informed that DHL, the international courier service, was closing its office here. No comment could be obtained from either company.

British Airways first flew here as Imperial Airways in January 1932 with a three-engined Hercules that used Harare - then Salisbury - as one of many stopovers on the laborious London-Cape Town route.

Later, passengers on the flying boat services on the route were enthralled by landing on the Zambezi River upstream of Victoria Falls, the world’s largest waterfall, on Zimbabwe’s northern border. There was also a 13-year hiatus when all international flights were suspended as the white minority Rhodesian Government was cut off by United Nations trade sanctions.

Air Zimbabwe, the state-owned airline, now offers the only direct flight to Europe. It has a good safety record and efficient, friendly staff but it is bedevilled by its owner that forces it to charge sub-economic fares and interferes by making political staff appointments and route choices.

In June and July, at the behest of Mr Mugabe’s bid to beat inflation with a national price freeze, Air Zimbabwe was ordered to charge the equivalent of about £200 for a return ticket to London – a quarter of the real cost.

The airline is also a victim of unscheduled arrivals of Mr Mugabe, his family or government officials demanding seats on a plane about to depart.

Just before yesterday’s London flight was due to board, half the passengers in business class were ordered into the economy section to make way for government VIPs.

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