Summary
- Linhas Aéreas de Moçambique (LAM) has lost over $3 million through embezzlement practices inside the airline.
- Investigations are underway as LAM collects all POS systems from its 20 ticket sales points to trace the missing money.
- Fuel shortages also caused flight disruptions for LAM over the weekend.
The restructuring project manager of Linhas Aéreas de Moçambique (LAM) has revealed that the national carrier lost over $3 million, which was stolen through various air ticket sales points. The corporate has already launched internal investigations to trace where the cash goes.
$3 million lost inside a month
As reported by Lusa, the project manager, Sérgio Matos, denounced the embezzlement practices inside the airline while speaking at a press conference in Maputo on Monday, February 12. He stated that the airline’s money had been embezzled through various ticket sales stores and points of sale (POS).
Photo: Felix Lipov | Shutterstock
Along with its internal security, LAM began collecting all POS systems from its 20 ticket sales points, and as of Sunday, February 11, about 81 had been collected. Based on Matos, the heads of some stores didn’t recognize some machines and had no idea who they belonged to.
The corporate began investigating the matter nearly two weeks ago after realizing that the cash it was receiving didn’t correspond to the variety of tickets sold. Further evaluations revealed that the corporate recorded losses of roughly two to a few million dollars within the last three months. In December alone, it had a deficit of $3.2 million.
![EuroAtlantic Boeing 777](https://static1.simpleflyingimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/shutterstock_2366317399.jpg)
Photo: StudioPortoSabbia | Shutterstock
This latest development is available in light of FMA’s efforts to bring the national company to operational stability. Nevertheless, the inner investigation also raised suspicions of cash being stolen during money collections. In some cases, deposits are made nearly three days after the cash is collected from stores. Matos was quoted by Lusa saying,
“The gathering of money is carried out by security corporations. Once we tried to search out out, at LAM points of sale, the way it is completed and after they receive it, we found that, sometimes, the deposit is made three days later, which suggests that cash is collected from the corporate after which it’s stored somewhere for 2 or three days, and after that comes the bordereau.”
FMA also discovered irregularities within the procurement of fuel at LAM. It discovered that unusually large amounts of fuel were being purchased for the aircraft. queried Matos.
Flight delays because of fuel shortages
The FMA director also took the time to make clear the flight disruptions faced by LAM Mozambique passengers over the weekend. Club of Mozambique reported that five international and domestic flights were delayed on Sunday because of a scarcity of fuel. Flightradar24 shows that one flight (TM354) operated by LAM subsidiary Moçambique Expresso from Maputo (MPM) to Harare (HRE) was delayed by over six hours.