When the 82-year-old Ethiopian aviation patriarch, Ato Girma Wake, was parachuted into Entebbe by President Yoweri Museveni in February 2026 to take over as acting CEO and consultant of Uganda Airlines, many joked that Museveni had dragged a tired older man out of retirement. Girma replaced the hapless Jennifer Bamuturaki, whose tenure had left three of six aircraft grounded.
Fast-forward to August 2026, and the story looks nothing like the joke. Under Girma’s brief watch to date, the grounded fleet has come back from the dead, maintenance discipline has been restored, eight new Boeing jetliners have been ordered, and the network is expanding to include daily flights to Kigali and, before year’s end, direct routes to Accra. How did one older man turn around an outfit sliding into yet another African tax sinkhole?
