RWANDA: Rwandair To Fly To Mumbai And Harare Early April

RwandAir will fly to new destinations this April,Harare on the 01st of April with daily flights and then Mumbai on the 03rd of April with four flights a week.

The two cities will be served with Boeing B737NG and Airbus A330 aircraft respectively.

Harare will from April onwards be combined with Lusaka as flights to Johannesburg revert to nonstop services, also operated with Boeing B737NG aircraft.

Mumbai, RwandAir's first ever intercontinental destination, will see one of the airline's new Airbus A330's, configured with a Business, Premium Economy and Economy class layout deployed for the nonstop flights from Kigali.

Connectivity has been ensured through adjusted departure times, which allows traffic from RwandAir's continental network to feed into the new destinations.

Said Mr. John Mirenge, CEO of RwandAir, earlier today when making the announcement: 'We are delighted to enable new and seamless connections between more African cities and beyond the continent which goes along with creating more businesses and boost the various countries social and economic development'.

Also still on the drawing board for 2017 are additional African destinations as well as London and New York.

The addition of Harare and Mumbai will bring the number of destinations served by RwandAir to 21 with a total fleet of presently 11 aircraft, due to rise to 12 when in May a fourth Boeing B737-800NG will join.

Both Airbus A330's and the two new B737-800NG's offer WiFi on board, available to all passengers against a fee.
RwandAir, a member of IATA, is e-IOSA, ISAGO and EASA certified for safe flight and ground operations.

RWANDA: Rwanda Air To Route Flights To India And China Via Dubai

Information received from an aviation source in Dubai suggests that RwandAir, due to receive two Airbus A330 wide body aircraft next year, may consider routing the planned flights to Guangzhou and Mumbai via Dubai.

Plans by RwandAir to launch Mumbai flights, using a B737-800NG via Dar es Salaam, came to naught when the Tanzanian aviation regulators denied the airline fifth freedom rights, claiming their own national airline was planning to launch flights, a preposterous suggestion causing widespread amusement considering the moribund state of Air Tanzania.

The Airbus order however puts paid to that plan as RwandAir will be able to launch flights from Kigali directly to Mumbai, but given that the airline apparently holds fifth freedom rights out of Dubai, may it well be a viable option to route is East bound intercontinental flights via DXB and pick up additional traffic from there.

The source attributed the information to RwandAir’s Deputy CEO Mr. Jean-Paul Nyirubutama, who is in the UAE for the Dubai Air Show, where he reportedly spoke to the media.

To boost continental flights from across Africa, key to feeding traffic into their planned intercontinental services to China, India and Europe, will a further two Boeing B737-800NG SkyInterior be joining the fleet in 2016 as well, very likely staged to arrive prior to the two A330’s which are due in Kigali in September and December next year respectively. RwandAir presently serves the West African destinations of Brazzaville, Libreville, Douala, Lagos and Accra while in Southern Africa flying daily to Johannesburg, a flight which presently routes three times a week via Lusaka. In Eastern Africa does RwandAir serve Bujumbura, Entebbe, Juba, Kilimanjaro, Dar es Salaam, Nairobi, Mombasa and, as a sole domestic destination, Kamembe in the south east of the country at the border to Congo.

Dubai is served daily too with three flights routing via Mombasa, where the airline again has fifth freedom rights in both directions.