Air Zimbabwe (UM, Harare International) is making a long-awaited return to London Gatwick on July 1 after having signed a 13-month ACMI lease agreement with Spain's Plus Ultra Líneas Aéreas to operate its flights from Harare International with an A330 widebody.

The arrangement was brokered by Chapman Freeborn Aviation Services, and flights will operate "several times per week" under Air Zimbabwe's flight code, Plus Ultra said in a statement distributed through the Spanish news agency Europa Press.

The ACMI arrangement gets around the issue that Air Zimbabwe remains banned from European Union airspace as it fails to meet international safety standards, as confirmed in the EU Commission's current Air Safety List.

Plus Ultra operates five A330-200s and two A330-300s, but the statement did not disclose which variant will be deployed on Air Zimbabwe's behalf.

ch-aviation has contacted all parties for more information.

According to the ZimLive news site, Air Zimbabwe last served London in December 2011, when financial pressures, creditor action, and regulatory challenges forced the suspension of its B767-200 operations.

Successive relaunch plans failed to materialise, despite the route being commercially attractive due to demand from Zimbabwe's United Kingdom diaspora and potential horticultural exports.

The restart comes as Air Zimbabwe is being restructured under the oversight of its 100% state-owned shareholder, the Mutapa Investment Fund (MIF), Zimbabwe's sovereign wealth fund. MIF CEO John Mangudya is leading Air Zimbabwe's revival plan, including the London flight restart.

Air Zimbabwe's entire in-house fleet of two E145s, one B737-200, and one B767-200ER is grounded. It wet leases one ATR42-500 from Kenya's Renegade Air for domestic flights and a regional link to Dar es Salaam, according to ADS-B data.

Plus Ultra says the Air Zimbabwe wet lease is the third long-term ACMI agreement it has signed in the past year, following similar arrangements with Air Algérie and Tunisair, alongside multiple shorter-term contracts. Silvia Avelar, its ACMI director, said: "This operation reinforces our growth strategy and consolidates the ACMI division as one of the company's key areas."