RwandAir eyes Far East, European destinations

The national carrier, RwandAir, is planning to introduce flights to Asian and European cities during the financial years 2016/2017 and 2017/2018, respectively. Mirenge. This was confirmed Thursday by the RwandAir CEO, John Mirenge. On Tuesday, the carrier’s management presented its five-year strategic plan to the parent ministry, the Ministry of Infrastructure. This was part of the performance contracts (imihigo) signed between the ministry and the institutions under its docket. Mirenge told The New Times that the possible destinations in Asia are Shanghai, Guangzhou and Beijing, all in China, while the Indian city of Mumbai is also being considered. “We are considering a Mumbai flight soon. We also hope that European flights will commence in the 2017/2018 fiscal year, though we are yet to zero in on specific destinations,” he said. Girma Wake, the board chair of RwandAir, said earlier that the airline’s five-year strategic plan, also includes increasing African destinations. “This is the third year into the implementation of the plan. It is a very critical year for RwandAir because we are preparing to go to the second leaf, in what we wanted to do, which is extending to more markets,” he said. “To facilitate that, we need to buy wide body aircraft and this is, therefore, a preparation year for us,” Wake said. Mirenge said yesterday that RwandAir is expected to acquire wide body planes with a seating capacity of up to 200 people in the later part of 2016 financial year. Wake said preparations for the inter-continental flights will include new African destinations that would connect to the envisaged Asian and European destinations. “In terms of preparations, we fly to new places within Africa so that we build the necessary infrastructure to go through Kigali to these points,” he said. According to the board chair, the new African destinations being considered include Luanda, Angola, Abidjan, Harare and Lusaka. “We are also focusing on building capacity of our technicians, because pilots and technicians are becoming rare commodities around the world. He said they have 14 Rwandan pilots while 19 more are being trained. He said RwandAir is being maintained by international experts, which he says is expensive. “We have 19 trained maintenance technicians, and are adding 20 others this year. We are partnering with the Ministry of Education to finance the training,” he said. So far, RwandAir flies to 16 destinations. The national carrier’s revenues are expected to increase from $81 million in the past financial year to $100.7 this financial year, an increase of 24 per cent. The number of passengers is also likely to increase from 448,000 to 529,000. The carrier currently has a fleet of seven aircraft.

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RwandAir eyes Far East, European destinations