RwandAir, the national flag carrier, has successfully renewed its certificate for the IATA Operational Safety Audit (IOSA) to remain competitive.

The airline’s IATA – IOSA registry will be valid from June 13, 2016 until June 13, 2018, officials from the International Air Transport Association (IATA) have said.

The IATA Operational Safety Audit (IOSA) programme is an internationally recognised and accepted evaluation system designed to assess the operational management and control systems of an airline.

All IATA members are IOSA registered and must remain registered to maintain IATA membershipThe national carrier was certified in 2014 and handed over this certificate after successfully safety audits were conducted on the airline’s operations system.

The renewal, according to Sonia Kamikazi, the airline’s Corporate Quality Assurance Manager, is vital to the sustainability of RwandAir and will "boost competitiveness of Africa’s fastest and youngest airline.”

"It ensures continuous development of IATA standards, regulatory requirements and industry best practices within our operations”, Kamikazi, told The New Times.

RwandAir passed this IOSA renewal audit with an exemplary report that had minimal findings and observations, following an audit conducted on RwandAir operations system from January 29, to February 04, 2016 by the audit organisation WAKE QA, she added.

The airline’s Chief Executive Officer, John Mirenge, congratulated employees for their hard work in maintaining these international and highly recognised standards.

This, according to Mirenge, has set a new trend for the African aviation industry in terms of safety and efficiency.

The national carrier has already signed a purchase agreement with Airbus to acquire Airbus aircraft A330-200 and A330-300.

The wide body aircraft are expected this year in September and November, respectively.

Aviation players are confident the acquisition of these two wide-body aircraft will significantly increase RwandAir’s capacity to effectively meet growing demand and provide exceptional service for the ever-growing Asia-China and European passenger markets.

In fact, it is anticipated that with two wide body aircraft, the airline’s capacity could grow from the current 500,000 passengers annually to more than 3 million in the next five years.

The two airlines will see RwandAir fleet grow to 12 planes.

Currently, the airline flies to more than 17 destinations, including Nairobi, Entebbe, Mombasa, Bujumbura, Lusaka, Juba, Douala, Dar-es-salaam, Kilimanjalo, Johannesburg, Dubai, Lagos, Libreville and Brazzaville, among others.

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