RwandAir begins Kigali Dar Es Salaam Mumbai route, from September 2016,
06/03/2016
RwandAir has confirmed that the Mumbai service will start, in September 2016. Flights will be operated on on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays.
http://www.rwandair.com/Media-Center/NEWS-PRESS-RELEASES/article/rwandair-to-start-direct-flights
20/01/2016
RwandAir will start direct flights connecting Mumbai with Rwanda’s capital city Kigali from September this year, with a stopover at Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania’s largest city. The airline will commence four weekly flights. The aircraft to be deployed is A330-200, with a seating capacity of 244 seats; effectively spread over three classes – 20 seats of Business class, 21 Premium and 203 Economy. This new connectivity will now reduce the flight time to 7 hours.
“As demand increases, we shall increase the seating capacity up to 274, with A330-300 with revised configuration(30 seats of Business class, 21 Premium and 223 Economy). Earlier, travellers had to take connecting flights from Nairobi, Addis Ababa, Doha. RwandAir will make a stop over in Dar-es – Salaam in Tanzania, which is home to Indian community and has not been connected yet,” iterated Clarence Fernandes, Representative, Rwanda Development Board.
Source : http://www.travelbizmonitor.com/Top-Stories/rwandair-to-connect-kigali-daressalaam-mumbai-from-sept-29535
RwandAir battles Air Tanzania for Mumbai route
06/04/2014
Emmanuel Muga
The Tanzania Civil Aviation Authority (TCAA) has asked Kigali and Dar es Salaam to resolve a dispute over RwandAir’s intention to fly the Mumbai route. TCCA director-general Fadhil Manongi said the matter has to be decided through bilateral arrangements.
Rwandair Tanzania country manager Hafeez Balogun said in February that the airline was planning to put flights on the Mumbai route, which would have been the first out of East Africa. But Air Tanzania protested and subsequent talks between the carriers failed.
“We came up with our terms, which we presented to officials from RwandAir, but the terms did not please them, therefore the talks were inconclusive,” Air Tanzania’s commercial director Juma Boma told a Tanzanian daily. Mr Manongi said Air Tanzania has no right to monopolise routes it is incapable of servicing. The airline operates only one aircraft that flies locally and to Burundi.
“If RwandAir wants to transport passengers from Kigali via Dar es Salaam to Mumbai, then the three countries have to agree; it is a policy issue and not for Air Tanzania to dictate,” Mr Manongi said. “Only a letter from the government will be enough to allow them to operate that route.
No monopoly
“Tactically Air Tanzania has no routes since it has not been in operation for many years. The business mode of monopolising routes existed in the 1980s, when we had only one airline,” he added.
“When Precision Air came here asking to operate Dar es Salaam-Entebbe route, we allowed them, we did not say the route belongs to Air Tanzania. Foreign airlines are allowed to operate here and they cannot be told that Air Tanzania owns the routes,” he added.
In April last year, a statement from the Rwandan Ministry of Infrastructure said RwandAir had received approval from the government of Tanzania to fly between Tanzania and India using the fifth freedom, and that authorities were waiting for approval from the Indian government.
The fifth freedom is the ability for a carrier of country A to carry passengers on an international route solely between country B and country C, when on a multi-leg flight that involves country A. Efforts to get a comment from Tanzania’s Ministry of Transport proved futile, and Mr Manongo said he was not aware of any approvals for the route.
SOURCE : THE EAST AFRICAN : HERE
Rwandair fails to secure Dar Es Salaam – Mumbai route with Air Tanzania
30/03/2014
In2EastAfrica Reporter
Reports say that Rwandair had held initial talks with Air Tanzania Corporation Limited (ATCL) management to use the Dar es Salaam – Mumbai (Bombay) route but were not conclusive.
According to the ATCL Acting Commercial Director, Mr Juma Boma, after the talks stalled, Rwandair officials are said to have approached TCAA to pursue the same without ATCL’s knowledge.
He said that the airline had come up with their terms which they presented to officials from Rwandair but “apparently did not please the management of Rwandair so they were not conclusive.”
Mr Boma said that Rwandair officials then approached TCAA to pursue the route, but they were informed that they should first contact authorities in India to see what the Bilateral Air Service Agreement between the two countries stipulated.
Had Rwandair been given permission to use the route, the airline would have been operating flights and carrying passengers directly from Kigali to Dar es Salaam to pick more and proceed to Mumbai (Bombay) using the ATCL codes.
Shall the airline become capable of operating its own flights to Mumbai, TCAA would have then been forced to issue a notice of six months asking Rwandair to stop using the route as ATCL intends to resume using it.
http://in2eastafrica.net/rwandair-fails-to-secure-dar-mumbai-route/#.UzehDQtUL7E.twitter
7 June 2013 : “Regarding the fifth freedom traffic right for Rwandair in Tanzania, the Tanzanian
Ministry of Transport in principal agreed to offer 5th freedom for Rwandair to Mumbai,
subject to receiving the official confirmation from the Government of India guarantying to
Rwandair rights to fly the Mumbai Dar-Es-Salaam route. However right can be waived in
the situation where the Airline from India/Tanzania applies for the license on that route”.
RwandAir will launch a Kigali-Dar Es Salaam-Mumbai (India) in coming month
13/02/2014
Ludovik Kazoka
RwandAir will soon introduce the Kigali-Dar es Salaam-Bombay flight following high demand for the service by customers interested to travel to the Asian country.
The Rwandair Country Manager, Mr Hafeez Balogun, told a news conference in Dar es Salaam late Tuesday that the route would be the first one out of Africa.
He said so far the airline covers about 14 countries on the African continent. “So far, Rwandair service covers only 14 countries including all the East African countries,” said the country manager during a meeting with the country based flight agencies.
The Rwandair recently increased frequencies to Dubai, introducing a daily flight. The new schedule is giving more choice to business travellers between Rwanda, UAE and India.
SOURCE : THE DAILY STAR : HERE
07/06/2013 update on 17 November 2013
According to an interview of the RwandAir commercial director, published on Airliner World issued in October 2013, RwandAir is waiting for the ETOPS certification to begin flights to India. Moreover, some days ago John Mirenge announced that Mumbai service has a strong chance to start in 2014.
What is ETOPS ?
ETOPS is an acronym for Extended range Twin Operations[1] as re-defined by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in 2007.[2] This rule allows twin-engined airliners (such as the Airbus A300, A310, A320, A330 and A350, the Boeing 737, 757, 767, 777, 787, the Embraer E-Jets, and the ATR 72) to fly long-distance routes that were previously off-limits to twin-engined aircraft. There are different levels of ETOPS certification, each allowing aircraft to fly on routes that are a certain amount of single-engine flying time away from the nearest suitable airport. For example, if an aircraft is certified for 180 minutes, it is permitted to fly any route not more than 180 minutes single-engine flying time to the nearest suitable airport. ETOPS operation has no direct correlation to water or distance over water. It refers to flight times between diversion airfields, regardless as to whether such fields are separated by water or land.
In August 2011, when RwandAir taken delivery of its first B737-800 (28/08/2011), John Mirenge announced that his airline planned to fly to Mumbai, via Dar Es Salaam (Tanzania). A logical desicion due to the increase of trade between India and Rwanda but also due to the large Indian diaspora living in East and South Africa.
During the delivery of the first B737-700, in April 2013, the RwandAir’s CEO reaffirmed the intention to serve India. According to a statement from the Rwandan Ministry of Infrastructure, RwandAir got approval from the Governement of Tanzania to fly between Tanzania and India using the 5th freedom. However, authorities are waiting for the approval from Indian Governement.
“Regarding the fifth freedom traffic right for Rwandair in Tanzania, the Tanzanian
Ministry of Transport in principal agreed to offer 5th freedom for Rwandair to Mumbai,
subject to receiving the official confirmation from the Government of India guarantying to
Rwandair rights to fly the Mumbai Dar-Es-Salaam route. However right can be waived in
the situation where the Airline from India/Tanzania applies for the license on that route”.
SOURCE : MINIFRA : HERE
RwandAir Destination Map (Dec 2012-Jan 2013)
Commentaires