Latest news with #RwandAir
Zawya
19-05-2025
- Business
- Zawya
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. © Copyright 2022 Nation Media Group. All Rights Reserved. Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (
Zawya
16-05-2025
- Business
- Zawya
RwandAir abandons West Africa routes for Mombasa, Zanzibar
Rwanda's national carrier has been forced to abandon three of its West African routes due to the cost of operating them following a ban by the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) from using its airspace. RwandAir CEO Yvonne Makolo, while addressing the press in Kigali, termed the DRC airspace blockade for Rwanda a 'very unfortunate' politicisation of aviation.'We had to suspend some of our routes, like Brazzaville, Abuja and Cotonou because the flight time became a bit long, but we are putting that capacity more on the Eastern and Southern routes in terms of additional frequencies,' she said. Read: DRC airspace ban will be costly for RwandAir, experts say'And we are looking at opening new routes. The first ones that are coming are Mombasa and Zanzibar. Until the issue is resolved, we shall focus more on the Eastern and Southern parts of the continent.'The airspace ban was imposed in February 2025, targeting Rwandan civil and state aircraft, citing 'a situation of insecurity due to armed conflict,' two weeks after the M23 rebels captured Goma, the provincial capital of North Kivu, in a bloody offensive that left more than 3,000 people dead. Although the total financial cost of the airspace ban is yet to be quantified, it goes without saying that closing such crucial West African routes has exposed RwandAir to losses. The delayed conclusion of the share acquisition deal between RwandAir and Qatar Airways has also derailed the airline's growth plan and exposed it to inefficiencies. The deal, announced in 2020, allows Qatar Airways to buy up to 49 percent of stake in RwandAir and a 60 percent stake in the soon-to-be completed Bugesera Airport. But, the negotiations have dragged on, and five years down, the deal is yet to be concluded.'The Qatar Airways partnership is still in progress, we were hoping to have it signed about a month ago, but it's still a work in progress,' Ms Makolo said. 'It's a bit complicated -- when you are doing this with an operating airline, there is a lot of due diligence that goes into it. But we are still confident that we shall see the conclusion of it, I am looking forward to it in the coming months.'Under the deal, RwandAir had expected additional aircraft to bolster its fleet. But, five years later, it still has 12 passenger planes, which is too few to match its ambitions. Passengers have been complaining about flight cancellations, particularly on long-haul routes such as Brussels and London, as the airline grapples with its limited fleet. Read: RwandAir to launch daily flights to LondonMs Makolo said that Rwandair had had to shelve plans for a direct flight to the US, which had been in the cards before Covid-19 disrupted the aviation industry.'But we are able to access up to five US cities through a codeshare partnership with Qatar Airways. We connect our passengers via Doha to the US. We are still looking to see if a direct flight to the US is feasible down the road,' she said. For years, the airline has been riding on financial injection from government. According to government data, between 2013 and 2016, RwandAir incurred accumulated losses of $222 million, while receiving $192 million in government grants. The Rwanda Fiscal Risk Statement (FRS) report shows that for the financial year 2024/25, RwandAir recorded an 82 percent increase in total revenues, rising to Rwf620.6 billion ($430 million) in 2023, from Rwf341 billion ($236.23 million) in 2022. © Copyright 2022 Nation Media Group. All Rights Reserved. Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (
Tourism Breaking News
07-02-2025
- Business
- Tourism Breaking News
RwandAir secures ‘Best African Airline' title at Arabian Travel Awards 2024
Post Views: 216 RwandAir once again secured 'Best African Airline' title at the seventh edition of the Arabian Travel Awards 2024. RwandAir is one of the fastest growing airlines and operates one of the youngest and state-of-the-art fleet on the African continent. The airline, which is also well regarded for an excellent on time performance, reaches out to twenty-seven cities in Western, Central, Eastern and Southern Africa, the Middle East and Asia.
