MALAWI: Fly Malawi Airlines

Domestic Flights

BLANTYRE
With Malawi Airlines known for our on-time performance, you are rest assured of being on time for your meeting or business in Blantyre courtesy of our daily morning flights to the commercial capital. Our Bombardier Q400 departs Lilongwe every morning at 08:30 and arrives in Blantyre at 09:10, Monday through Sunday. Book your flight to Blantyre today. Experience our unbeatable on-time performance. Fly Malawi Airlines.

LILONGWE
Our daily afternoon flights to Lilongwe from Blantyre offer you wonderful opportunity to go about your business in the commercial capital with no stress at all knowing Malawi Airlines is there to take you back to the Capital City. Our Boeing 737-700 departs Blantyre at 15:55 and arrives in Lilongwe at 16:35 Monday through Sunday. Book your flight to Lilongwe today. Experience our unbeatable on-time performance. Fly Malawi Airlines.

Regional Flights

Johannesburg
No more stress. Our daily morning flights to Johannesburg provide you great and convenient opportunity to do business in the Rainbow Nation and/or connect to the rest of the region and the world. Our Boeing 737-700 departs Lilongwe at 08:20 and arrives in Blantyre at 09:00 and later departs Blantyre for Johannesburg at 09:45. Book your flight to Johannesburg today. Experience our unbeatable on-time performance. Fly Malawi Airlines.

Nairobi
Introducing flights to Nairobi, four times a week, Wednesday through Saturday. From 29th March, 2017, Malawi Airlines will commence evening flights to Nairobi with our Boeing 737-700 departing Lilongwe for Nairobi at 17:45 every Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Return flights from Nairobi to Lilongwe will be at 06:15 on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays and Sundays. Experience our unbeatable on-time performance. Experience the difference. Fly Malawi Airlines.

Lusaka
We fly to Lusaka four times a week on Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. Fly Malawi Airlines and experience our on-time performance at unbelievably affordable fares.

Harare
We fly to Harare four times a week on Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. Fly Malawi Airlines and experience our on-time performance at unbelievably affordable fares.

Dar es Salaam
We fly to Dar es Salaam four times a week on Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Fly Malawi Airlines and experience our on-time performance at unbelievably affordable fares.

Zanzibar
From 5th April, 2017, Malawi Airlines will commence late afternoon flights to Zanzibar with our Bombardier Q400 departing Lilongwe for Zanzibar at 17:30 every Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Return flights from Zanzibar to Lilongwe will be at 05:15 on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays and Sundays. Experience our unbeatable on-time performance. Experience the difference. Fly Malawi Airlines.

MALAWI: National Geographic Goes Mad For Malawi

One of the top magazine brands in the world, National Geographic, has been recently going wild for all things Malawi. This includes featuring Malawi in a full length article and holiday prize competition in National Geographic Traveller magazine and having a 6 page spread in the current issue of National Geographic Kids magazine.

Reading the National Geographic traveller Magazine is a great way to help you plan the best time to go on your next jet-setting adventure and will inspire your choice of destination with amazing photography and passionate articles. With Malawi having much to offer i.e. Wildlife, Culture, Adventure and the third largest lake in Africa it’s no wonder that the magazine is now focussed on the country. The December issue contains an 8 page feature and a competition to win a holiday in Malawi. The compettion can be entered online: click here. The feature covers Malawi’s cities: Lilongwe, Blantyre, Zomba; two of Malawi’s most popular parks Liwonde National Park, Majete Wildlife Reserve; and of course the scenic wonderland that is Lake Malawi.

Chris Leadbeater, who wrote the Malawi feature, was clearly very taken with the country:
"A tiny pocket of Southern Africa, with its very own Lake of Stars, Malawi is warm, welcoming, yet hard to pin down. With a ragged beauty, lantern-lit boats trawling its waters and wildlife-packed parks, this is Africa at its most endearing."

The article features some of Malawi’s top lodges in Mvuu Lodge, Pumulani and Mkulumadzi and the trip was put together by the high-quality UK tour operator, Expert Africa, with Chris’s flight provided by the ever reliable South African Airways.

The National Geographic Kids magazine has always been a great way to help children learn about different cultures and traditions. Plus they can also read about all the different animals from all over the world – and now Malawi’s animals are in the limelight. The October edition featured an interview with bat expert, Dr Emma Stone, who runs a bat conservation project in Malawi, African Bat Conservation. And the November edition covered the wonderful Satemwa Tea Plantations in the Thyolo area, and Malawi’s importance to the UK tea trade.

At a time when Malawi’s wildlife is hot news, the current December edition of the magazine contains a massive 6 page spread of Safari experiences in Liwonde National Park. It’s a brilliant showcase of Malawi’s biggest animals. Hippos, Elephants and Rhinos get the most attention in a feature that is a great read for kids and adults. It ends with an exciting rhino-tracking adventure lead by Hungarian rhino specialist Krisztián Gyöngyi and expert rhino tracker Christopher Kanyange at Liwonde National Park! You can read that article online here.

Organised by passionate travel experts, Mahlatini, and flying in with one of the leading africa airlines, Kenya Airways, it’s clear to see why the trip was such a success. Georgia Harrison, writer of the Nat Geo Kids articles, was full of gushing praise on her return from her 'incredible' trip to Malawi: “Wow – what an experience!… I had a blast … such an action-packed itinerary. So much to write about! Please accept my overflowing gratitude.”

And the magazine hasn’t had enough of Malawi yet – keep your eyes peeled in 2016 for a Lake Malawi feature!

Don't forget to enter the Malawi Holiday Competition (click here) and to pick up copies of the current editions of National Geographic Traveller and National Geographic Kids to read all about Malawi!

TANZANIA: Fastjet gets Rights To Fly To Comoros But Kenya Still Refuses

Tanzania’s largest airline in terms of passengers uplifted, has secured traffic rights between Dar es Salaam and the Prince Said Ibrahim International Airport on the Comoros main island of Moroni.

Information sourced speaks of initially two flights per week between the Tanzania and the Comoros, which will increase as demand for seats and cargo goes up.

This makes it Fastjet’s sixth African destination out of Dar es Salaam after Johannesburg, Lusaka, Harare, Entebbe and Lilongwe, while their application for landing rights in Nairobi continues to gather dust in the deepest dungeons of Kenya’s Civil Aviation Authority.

‘Other countries want us to fly to their capitals’ said a source close to the airline before adding ‘Why the Kenyans do not want Fastjet to fly there remains a complete mystery. All prerequisite criteria have been met, all the boxes have long been ticked but it seems that the KCAA is now changing the size of these boxes and wants crosses instead of ticks? Are they for real?

They are setting the worst possible example for the opening of the African airspaces. Have they ever heard of Yamoussoukro or the fact that Kenya signed on to the AU protocol about liberalizing air transport?. Their protectionism will come back to haunt them when TCAA again enforces the present BASA’.

Fastjet in Zambia is also reportedly now very close to attaining their Air Operator Certificate which will allow them to launch flight operations out of Lusaka, presently served daily in conjunction with Harare.

The Zimbabwean launch at the end of October proved highly successful with already over 3.500 seats sold on the route between Harare and Victoria Falls. Discussions with the CAAZ are reportedly continuing about adding Bulawayo and Johannesburg as next destinations, after Fly Africa continues to postpone their relaunch following their grounding by the CAAZ when their local partners handed in the airline’s AOC at the end of October. Sources close to the airline in Harare have confirmed that once the additional routes have been secured that an additional Airbus A319 aircraft will be deployed to Zimbabwe more or less immediately to have enough aircraft on the ground to serve the additional destinations.

TANZANIA: Fastjet Grows With Arrival Of Fourth A319;

fastjet’s most recent route launch was from Dar es Salaam to Lilongwe in Malawi on 27 July. The route is currently served twice-weekly, though frequency will increase to four flights per week from mid-September. The LCC now operates to nine airports, four in Tanzania and five others in five different African countries.

The idea of a pan-African LCC is very appealing, but the lack of liberalisation across much of the continent has made it impossible (so far) in practice. fastjet was established to try and be such a carrier, but at present it has been confined to operating domestically and internationally from Tanzania, with its main base at Dar es Salaam. The airline’s first flight was on 29 November 2012 when domestic services were introduced. International flights started on 18 October 2013 with the airline’s first service to Johannesburg. fastjet now operates in four further countries; Malawi, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

In Dar es Salaam fastjet is by far the leading carrier with over 11,000 weekly departing seats on its fleet of three A319s. This represents over one quarter of all seat capacity at the airport. The airline’s most recently published traffic statistics indicate that it carried 71,763 passengers in July (a new monthly record), an increase of 36% on the same month in 2014. Load factor was 72%. In 2014, fastjet carried almost 600,000 passengers. In the 12 months ending July 2015 that has increased to almost 750,000.
Domestic network currently accounts for 75% of ASKs

fastjet operates to five destinations non-stop in both directions from Dar es Salaam. These are Kilimanjaro, Mbeya and Mwanza in Tanzania, Johannesburg (South Africa) and Lilongwe (Malawi). Entebbe in Uganda is served from Dar es Salaam via Kilimanjaro, while Harare (Zimbabwe) and Lusaka (Zambia) are served using a triangular routing; Dar es Salaam-Lusaka-Harare-Dar es Salaam, resulting in both routes having a stop in one direction.

The airline’s domestic routes (shown in dark green) currently account for 75% of total weekly ASKs (Available Seat Kilometres), with the route to Mwanza alone accounting for over 42% of the carrier’s ASKs.
4th aircraft from mid-September

From mid-September fastjet’s fleet will increase to four A319s. No new routes are being added at this time but there will be frequency increases (especially on international routes) and schedule quality will improve with the return flight from Johannesburg no longer operating during the night. Frequency on the Johannesburg route will also increase from three flights per week to seven. The arrival of the fourth aircraft will see weekly flights across the network increase from 167 to 217, with international sectors almost doubling from 25 to 49. As a result, the proportion of ASKs coming from domestic flights will fall from the current 75% to around 61%.

fastjet’s network currently comprises nine airports, including four in Tanzania. The airline’s longest route is to Johannesburg in South Africa, which was also the carrier’s first international destination. The addition of a fourth A319 in mid-September will help allow frequency increases on international routes, but will not see any new routes launched.