The national carrier RwandAir announced on Tuesday, May 12 that it had secured a deal with Tanzania that will see the airline transport cargo from Mwanza airport to Brussels, Belgium.

"Today we inaugurated our cargo flight from Mwanza to Brussels which will be transporting fish to Europe,” the airline said in a tweet.

This is a deal that first emerged last year when news circulated that Tanzanian and Rwandan officials were in talks to enable RwandAir to ferry fish from northern Tanzania to overseas markets, especially Europe.

Yvonne Makolo, the carrier’s chief executive officer confirmed that they "have been in talks for a while” and that the arrangement will enable the airline to finally help Tanzania take their cargo to European markets.

"Since we are flying to Europe, we are combining cargo from here (Rwanda) and Mwanza,” she said in an interview.

Makolo said they are particularly ferrying fresh produce from Kigali and fish from Mwanza.

The deal was reportedly expected to provide relief for Lake Zone fish traders, who have, for a long time, been seeking an alternative airline to transport their products abroad.

Wholesale fish traders have been relying on Entebbe and Nairobi airports, which they say is costly.

RwandAir has been operating cargo flights, a model it adopted after countries imposed travel bans due to the coronavirus pandemic, which saw many airlines across the world ground their planes.

The national carrier currently operates cargo flights to Brussels, London and Guangzhou in China.