New routes: Dubai Mombasa and Kinshasa

KIGALI - RwandAir, on Friday, received its second Boeing 737-500 at a colourful ceremony held at the Kigali International Airport.

The two class configuration aircraft with 12 business class and 90 economy class seats, is the second to be acquired by the national carrier, on dry lease agreement from leading aircraft leaser, General Electric Capital Aviation Services (GECAS).

Its arrival marks the end of the initial stage of RwandAir’s fleet acquisition.

"I am pleased that we have successfully moved from previous wet lease arrangements to an owned and operated fleet,” said Rene Janata, CEO RwandAir.

He further announced that with the current fleet size, plans were underway to launch scheduled flights to Kinshasa and Dubai via Mombasa, beginning October 2010.

"The recent changes in our flight schedule were made to accommodate these new destinations we will be flying to and also create a network operation for better connectivity,” Janata added.

The Minister of Infrastructure, Vincent Karega said: "I am pleased the national carrier will be connecting Rwanda to the second port city of East Africa and also the Middle East.”

He further expressed the Government’s desire to build a viable airline, which is commercially profitable.

RwandAir currently operates three flights to the port city of Dar es Salaam and will fly to Dubai via Mombasa, four times a week.

The airline serves all East African community capital cities with daily flights and it flies to Johannesburg five times a week. The airline currently has a fleet of two Boeing 737-500 aircrafts, two Bombardier CRJs and a Dash 8 aircraft. The company is also awaiting two other Boeing 737-800 aircrafts to join the fleet in 2011.

The carrier is aggressively growing its fleet to cater for its network expansion plans that will see it fly to more regional and intercontinental destinations.

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