hello Mark,

I hunted in september 2010 in Selous L 1.... with other frenchie in Madabala camp
Area poatched in the middle of Selous......
Compagny South african: big clowns ,
meat chicken 7 days..because buffalo are rare....yes
No other clients after 10 september 2010.....

465 H&H: +1!

Just to clear up any misunderstanding about the areas we are offering the buffalo hunts in I sent a PM to odoysakia to give him a chance to rethink his statements. My hope was that he would check his hunting permit and see that he was mistaken on the area hunted. Since he has not chosen to do so I'd like to explain that Kulungu Safaris operates L1 and has not had a French client for two years, Sept '10 had only a 21 day safari and the camp is not called Madabala. Wayne Clark who several of you may know has hunted L1 extensively and calls it an excellent area.

Mark

I think that TZ has beautiful areas and exzellent PHs. The hunting I did in the past was very good. However I do not buy any longer in these ridiculuos prices esp. the Charter rip off. Much better value in ZW, CAR etc.

quote:

Originally posted by MARK H. YOUNG:
Just to clear up any misunderstanding about the areas we are offering the buffalo hunts in I sent a PM to odoysakia to give him a chance to rethink his statements. My hope was that he would check his hunting permit and see that he was mistaken on the area hunted. Since he has not chosen to do so I'd like to explain that Kulungu Safaris operates L1 and has not had a French client for two years, Sept '10 had only a 21 day safari and the camp is not called Madabala. Wayne Clark who several of you may know has hunted L1 extensively and calls it an excellent area.

Mark

Correctly stated - owner of Kulungu has transformed that block since taking it over from Bright Tours. Advised odoysakia along your same lines.

quote:

Originally posted by JBoutfishn:

quote:

Originally posted by Michael Robinson:
It has never been convincingly explained to me, and so I have never understood, why Tanzanian charter flights are so expensive - compared with charters in other African nations.

Sure would like to see the explanation.

The operating cost for a caravan in Tz is around US$1k/hr flight time. I don't know how that compares with other African countries? Most charter companies exclusively operate caravans with smaller aircraft (eg 206, etc) being hard to come by and in many instances their airworthiness looks doubtful.

Just got a quote for a two hour one way in Tanz of $2700. That puts a significant uptick on the cost of a Buff Hunt.

Jeff

Gentlemen:

I have no idea if this will work in this case or not. However it warrants investigation.

While the charter costs are very high in TZ, they may be a safe low cost alternative. There are some regional airlines that make round trips stopping at various strips in the bush on a regularly scheduled basis. The last time I was in TZ, we did this. On the way out, it cost me $285 each IIRC, for a 2 hour flight on a sizable plane that only has 3 passengers on it.

The year before I spent $8,000 on charters. I would look into this.

Charter costs and daily fees in Tanzania have become obscene. But if you want to hunt there that's the price.

I am glad to have hunted Tanz once and it looks like it will never happen again.

I have operated owned and flown light aircraft for over 25 years and can tell you that no matter what your local friendly PH's and booking agents try to explain away these costs can only be due to somebody gouging the living crap out of you the customer.

I have never seen any cheap private charter!! I would never personally get on a charter plane in Africa if it was too cheap because I know it is very costly to own and operate planes in Africa with all the dust etc. Get realistic guys, it costs more money to get to remote areas and that is just a fact. if you can't afford it that is fine, just don't complain about it because it is not going to change and not going to get any cheaper to charter planes.

In general in Africa whether it be Tanzania, C.A.R, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Namibia etc most charters will cost roughly right around $900-$1,200 per hour flying time depending on country and cost of fuel, maintenance, permits, insurance, pilot costs etc.

I have booked several charters here in the US and Mexico and the cost was either about the same or more expensive using same type planes like Caravan and Pilatus and King Air 200.

If you want cheap charters then you are playing Russian Roulette and better to hunt where you can drive to.

Now as Larry also mentioned there are sometimes a different option on domestic flights. For example. Clients who will hunt in Kizigo East with me and don't want to take charter, we will book them on domestic flight from Dar to Dodoma at around $250 each way. We meet client and then drive them into camp which is around a 4 hour drive at $200 each way. So $900 round trip doing this way, but takes all day to get there instead of just 2 hours. We try to accommodate clients as best we can when we can.

These were not charters . They were regularly scheduled flights of small regional airlines . We flew Arusha to Manyara. Manyara to Ruaha. Ruaha to Arusha. IIRC we had less than $500 per person total for all flights. Damn Nice plane. Well maintained. It also stopped in the Selous and other places . Worthwhile checking fellows .

Zim-2009. Harare to Macumburra(Moz) border- $1900 in a Cessna 210- total flight hours- 5 hrs ( 1hr. 15 minutes each way times 4).
Moz 2008. Pretoria to Polokwane( clear outbound customs) to Beira( clear inbound customs) to camp. total time 4 1/2 hours each way( total time in the air approx 3 hr. 45 minutes times 4!!!). twin engined 7 passenger Aerostar( i was the only passenger). cost $3500.
Botswana 2006- Maun to Kalahari camp - 1 hour flight time( times 4). $800.
a quick look at the SCI donated hunts in Tz last month showed charter flight estimates from $3,000-10,000 with an average of about $5000. even allowing for a 25-50% increase( or more) in the above quoted prices for inflation, the figures still speak for themselves. absolutely none of these prices remotely approach $1000/hr.
and it's a little hard for me to believe that outfitters in these other countries are endangering their clients by booking them with substandard/ unsafe charter companies. of course, i also never realized that Tz. was such a shining example of air safety.

Let me clarify my comments earlier.

I needed to fly to the Ruaha park. From there, it was a 2 hour drive to camp. The charter was going to cost us $7,500 IIRC. Instead of chartering, we took some regional airline. I am not sure I have the name right but Coastal something or another comes to mind. We took it from Arusha to Lake Manyara (where we spent the night after seeing the Crater). The next day we flew from Lake Manyara to the Ruaha. About 3 weeks later we flew from the Ruaha back to Arusha. I think the total cost was about $1400 for two people. Needless to say this was attractive to me not only because of the cost but also the size and speed of the airplane.

I remember having a discussion about this with some people on the plane. The plane was making 3 other stops, some of which (perhaps all) were in the Selous. These were definitely bush landing and not some airport.

If I ever go again, I will look into this again.

One other note. Some of the bush strips in TZ are very far away. These can be 4-5 hours one way. That is going to be expensive.

Having said that, I am with jdollar. I don;t understand why other African countries are so much less than TZ.