Ghana airways seeks divine intervention

By Kwaku Sakyi-Addo
BBC, Accra

The staff of Ghana Airways have now turned to God to keep the airline in the skies after trying every management trick in the MBA curriculum.

Ghana has run out of options and the sky may no longer be the limit

Last week the management and staff held a three-hour prayer session where they sought celestial intervention in the desperate affairs of one of Africa's first national carriers.

They sang, prayed and cited the scriptures under the direction of a Ghanaian evangelist who flew in from London.

Ghana Airways owes more than $160m to a variety of creditors.

It is unable to keep up with payments and the government, which wholly owns it, says it cannot bail her out.

The money is wanted elsewhere.

A wing and a prayer

Ghana airways owns five aircraft, but only one is in the air.

It is a DC 10 which does the long haul flights to Europe and America.

But it has no in-flight entertainment.

The airline has a stronger presence in West Africa where a lease aircraft hops to national capitals - from Lagos to Dakar.

Yet it is notorious for not flying on time or not flying at all.

Sometimes there is no money to pay for fuel.

Still, it employs nearly 1,500 people. It has more drivers than it has vehicles and more typists than keyboards.

Every few months there is a new management and a board chairman, but none of them have managed to keep Ghana Airways from its free fall.

Now that it has run out of options, Ghana airways hopes to take off on a wing and a prayer.