Uganda Airlines ups the ante against East African peers on London route
London Gatwick is likely to become a new flashpoint for competition among East Africa's airlines in the coming months, as carriers looking for growth in the UK market find it the only option for expanding services.
Uganda Airlines is set for its inaugural flight to London and Europe on May 18, with London Gatwick as the destination for the service that will operate four times a week.
UR 110, which was scheduled to take off at 9.25am local time, comes just weeks ahead of a new service to London by Kenya Airways that will also be landing at Gatwick starting July 2, 2025.
Both carriers join Ethiopian Airlines, which besides its single daily flight to London Heathrow, has been operating additional flights to Gatwick since November 2023, an airport it returned to after a 17-year break. As of May, 2025, Ethiopian flies four times a week to Gatwick bringing its total capacity in the London area to 11 flights a week.
Kenya Airways, which has a daily service to London Heathrow, will be operating three flights a week into London Gatwick, taking its weekly flights into the UK to 10.
RwandAir has dedicated all its flights into the UK to London Heathrow, after operating from Gatwick in the initial years.
Uganda Airlines entry into the UK market complicates the equation for Kenya Airways and Ethiopian, because they have been picking a significant portion of traffic from Uganda.
There have been no direct flights between Uganda and the UK since British Airways halted its service to Entebbe in November 2015. The return of Uganda Airlines with a direct flight that slashes hours of transit agony from the journey is expected to eat into KQ's and Ethiopian's pie.
Both carriers, operating the largest number of flights within Africa, depend on connecting traffic from within the continent to feed their intercontinental flights.
Competitors, including RwandAir, KQ, Ethiopian and Gulf carriers Emirates and Qatar, are however, expected to continue to attract business for passengers who may prefer to enter the UK through Heathrow, or those connecting to the US and other European destinations.
Until it completes partnerships with other airlines for onward carriage, Uganda Airlines will be an origin and destination operator whose services terminate in London. On the return journeys, however, it will offer tickets beyond Entebbe across its network of 14 African destinations.
According to industry analysts, the growing number of flights by East African carriers into the UK, including landing at Gatwick, reflects two parallel trends - strong growth in demand on Africa-UK sector, and the exhaustion of slots at Heathrow for airlines that may want to want to expand their services into the UK.
The scarcity of slots at Heathrow means that any intending entrant would pay through the nose to buy some from an incumbent. Even then, the timings of available slots may not fit well into a new entrants' network feed and de-feed mechanism.
In terms of capacity, however, Ethiopian has an edge over the competition. The A350-900 it operates on the London route is configured to 343 seats. Meanwhile, Uganda Airlines has 258 seats on its A330-800neo while Kenya comes in with only 234 seats available on its B787-8 Dreamliner.
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