There’s been a lot of talk about the aeroplane President Mnangagwa hired for his international roadshow to 5 countries while Zimbabwe was experiencing one of the most violent weeks in recent memory.
Pictures of Mnangagwa arriving in Russia and Belarus show him disembarking a Deer Jet plane. Searching for the Deer Jet online reveals that this is a special plane which the company calls the Dream Jet. It’s a Boeing 787 Dreamliner which Deer Jet, a Chinese company, hires out to “Head of States, and top VVIP royal families”.
Research by CNN Money in 2017 revealed that the company hires out the jet at US $74,000 an hour. The article refers to it as a “flying hotel”. Given the cost per hour, the total cost of Mnangagwa’s trip has been estimated to run into 10s of millions.