Tag Archives: RwandAir

RwandAir has signed an agreement with Euroairlines Group to improve the distribution of its more than 30 domestic and international routes. They will benefit from the network of travel agencies, OTAs, aggregators and consolidators in more than 60 countries that the Spanish company will make available to them through its IATA Q4-291 plate. The Rwandan company, based in Kigali, offers regular flights to 22 countries across Africa, Europe, the Middle East and Asia, after 22 years of existence. RwandAir was born in December 2002 as a national airline under the name of Rwandair Express with a concession to provide airport ground services as an ancillary activity. In December 2009, the current RwandAir began operations with Kigali International Airport as its hub. Since then, it has been providing commercial and passenger services and has a fleet of 14 aircraft, including three Airbus aircraft with more than 250 seats, seven Boeing aircraft with more than 120 seats and four Bombardier aircraft with a capacity of more than 60 people. According to Euroairlines CEO, Antonio López-Lázaro, the agreement will intensify and consolidate the already significant growth experienced by the African airline in recent years. “For us, southern Africa is an area with a lot of potential, which is why it is strategic to have such an established partner in the region as RwandAir”, says López-Lázaro. “Between the two companies, we can bring great value to each other to drive our growth, and our presence in more than 50 markets supports our distribution network”, adds.

“The sterilisation programmes, safety protocols and regulations guiding airports and airlines have made it all possible for the country and Dubai, one of the world’s leading tourist destinations and hub to reopen for visitors,” said Timothy Njihia – Country Manager U.A.E – RwandAir. “As an aviation and Tourism stakeholder, this is a key milestone that signals a safe return of tourism (visitors). The re-opening also coincides with Dubai Summer Surprises 2020 a return to business and finally the elusive revenues that were lost since the cessation of flights on the 25th March. What is important are the safety protocols and precautions in place and the continuous monitoring as this is what led to informed decisions on the resumption of key sectors of business and flights. One cannot underscore the importance of tourism for Dubai and the reassuring messages that have been continuously communicated. They have been very encouraging and a big boost!” “I personally cannot wait for the July 7, 2020 to welcome incoming visitors who will come to experience the diverse attractions, as well as being amongst the first of Dubai’s residents to travel overseas whilst observing the strict new rules for safety. As an airline, we look forward to resuming our daily passenger flights to Dubai at the earliest opportunity and being a contributor and driver to Dubai’s tourism,” he concluded.

RwandAir’s new Flight Pass takes off with Optiontown enabling savvy travellers to enjoy savings offered by Flight Pass. RwandAir customers could now save from their ticket purchases thanks to a new partnership with Optiontown. The new offering enables customers to conveniently pre-purchase RwandAir flights at the best available price and decide when they want to travel at a later date. To find out more or to book the RwandAir Flight Pass, visit rwandair.optiontown.com Yvonne Manzi Makolo, CEO of RwandAir said, “The linkup with Optiontown could offer substantial savings for our clients following the launch of our RwandAir Flight Pass. Our customers will be able to enjoy a new world of flexible flights and cheaper tickets thanks to the launch of this new product in partnership with Optiontown.” Sachin Goel, Founder & CEO, Optiontown said, “Optiontown which is a pioneer in developing innovative travel options is excited to partner with RwandAir to launch our flagship product Flight Pass, which enables passengers to save on travel costs and makes flight planning and booking extremely easy and convenient. We’re confident the launch will increase customer loyalty for RwandAir and enhance the booking experience with the leading African airline.”

It was a great evening at the Kiza Restaurant & Lounge in Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), Dubai during the African Market, an event that was held to promote emerging Pan-African businesses. RwandAir took the opportunity to showcase their products and services to the local and expat community in Dubai. Timothy Njihia, Area Manager for RwandAir, stated that this was a great place to engage potential and existing RwandAir customers.  To support the event further, RwandAir had in place two return economy class tickets from Dubai to any destination in the RwandAir network to be awarded to two winners participating in the African Market, an opportunity to experience to fly the dream of Africa, as the airline’s tagline says.

It was the second consecutive year that RwandAir sponsored the EmQuest Cricket Mania event recently with other partners such as Turkish Airlines, Seychelles Tourism Board, Millennium Hotels Dubai, Flexible Autos etc. The two-day event saw a total of about 800 participants from the travel trade which included players, spectators etc. EmQuest Cricket Mania is a large scale event that witnesses the coming together of travel management giants in the industry to compete against each other for the ever rolling trophy. Built on the success of the previous year, EmQuest, a division of Emirates returned with their annual cricket championship tournament EmQuest Cricket Mania 2019 for all Sabre users across the UAE. With Turkish mega carriers, Turkish Airlines as the platinum sponsors and the fast rising giants in the aviation industry — RwandAir as the gold sponsors of EmQuest Cricket Mania 2019. Kanoo Travels were announced as the winners of EmQuest Cricket Mania 2019 and dnata emerged as the runners up. Timothy Njihia, Area Manager, RwandAir,  stated, “RwandAir has been a consistent sponsor of EmQuest’s Cricket Mania tournaments for the last two years, as the T-Shirt Sponsor and in 2019 as the Gold Sponsor. We sponsor the tournament during the event days, that is, the two  weekends that the tournaments last.  This partnership is very important to us as it is a top-of-mind brand awareness to the travel trade, with trade engagement through sports, that is, cricket in order to strengthen partnerships between stakeholders RwandAir, EmQuest & the travel trade.

RwandAir, the flag carrier of the Republic of Rwanda, announced that it will commence flights to Guangzhou, the provincial capital of Guangdong and the third largest city in China, effective from June 18, 2019. RwandAir will fly to Guangzhou three times a week on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Guangzhou will be tagged to the existing Mumbai route and will be operated by our Airbus A330 with triple class cabin and equipped with state-of-the-art technology, Wi-Fi onboard, in-flight entertainment and comfortable seats with more legroom making it very convenient for long haul flights. Commenting on the upcoming launch of the Guangzhou route, Yvonne Manzi Makolo, the CEO of RwandAir, said, “With the increasing volume of trade between African countries and China, the need to meet the high demand of businessmen and traders travelling between Africa and Guangzhou is strongly felt. This new route will open new business opportunities and also increase our passenger and cargo traffic”. Guangzhou, well known as the “Canton City” is an expansive port city northwest of Hong Kong on the Pearl River. The city, which is one of the major shopping destinations for merchants also features popular tourist attractions such as the iconic Canton Tower and Guangzhou Chimelong Tourist Resort which offers an amusement park, international circus, water park, safari park, a bird park and a hotel. Guangzhou will be RwandAir’s second destination in Asia following Mumbai, which has been operational since April 2017. This new route will extend RwandAir’s network to 28 destinations.

RwandAir has announced its expansion through partnership with Amadeus to adopt technology that will allow its customers to benefit from improved efficiency, better experience and increased convenience. This is in line with further boosting Rwanda as a travel destination. Last year Rwanda’s capital city, Kigali was ranked the third most popular destination in Africa to host international conferences. RwandAir was recently named the 10th most-improved airline in the world by Skytrax and has built a reputation for excellent on-time performance. Having previously provided RwandAir with distribution services, Amadeus will now roll out solutions across passenger systems, revenue management, loyalty management, payments, and data and analytics. The extended partnership intends to support RwandAir’s plans of expanding its network and fleet. Yvonne Manzi Makolo, CEO, RwandAir said, “RwandAir is committed to providing an impeccable customer experience that will fuel our continued expansion in the years to come. We look forward to an extended partnership with Amadeus that will provide us with the world-class passenger services solution with an upgrade of our reservations, ticketing, departure control, e-commerce, market intelligence and loyalty systems”. The benefits of using the Amadeus’s Passenger System (Altéa) also extend to Amadeus’ global travel seller network. Maher Koubaa, VP META, Amadeus, said, “Amadeus uses industry insights combined with smart technology to build the technology that empowers airlines, travel agents and their customers alike to streamline processes, boost convenience, build reputation and loyalty, and more. We’re proud that our partnership with RwandAir has grown so that we can continue to contribute to its growth story.”

RwandAir is set to commence flights to the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa from April 2019. The airline will operate five weekly direct flights from Kigali to Addis Ababa with a CRJ-900NG aircraft. With flights to Addis Ababa, RwandAir will be offering seamless connections through its hub in Kigali between Addis Ababa and other African cities in its network. The addition of Addis Ababa is key to RwandAir’s growth in Africa and it’s also a bridge for strengthening the bilateral relationships and improving trade and tourism between the two countries. “As an expanding young airline, it is imperative for us to fly to Addis Ababa Bole International airport as it is one of the important hubs in Africa” said Yvonne Manzi Makolo, CEO, RwandAir. “By starting direct flights to Addis Ababa, we expect to offer better connections to East, West and Southern Africa” she added. With the addition of Addis Ababa to our network, RwandAir will reach out to 27 destinations in Africa, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Addis Ababa is not only the administrative, financial and commercial centre of the country but it also hosts the Headquarters of the African Union, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and many other regional offices for a number of international organisations.

RwandAir has recently appointed Cozmo Travel as its Passenger General Sales Agent (GSA) for the GCC countries (Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia (Offline). “These strategic partnerships play a very important role especially for airlines entering new markets and the practice is that airlines look competitively for established and well known GSA’s when entering particular markets which saves airlines associated costs for new market entry and, or development such as infrastructure, human resource etc while focusing on results. We are already established in the UAE, flying into and out of Dubai and we do cover the entire UAE market from a passenger and cargo sales perspective. This partnership is part of a growth strategy, though offline and it gives us an opportunity to assess the GCC markets for any other decisions in the future,” stated  Timothy Njihia, Country Manager—UAE | GCC | Pakistan, RwandAir.” Jamal Abdulnazar, CEO, Cozmo Travel stated, “With Cozmo Travel’s extensive retail presence in all the GCC countries, RwandAir will be able to capitalise on Cozmo’s  network in the region ensuring a wider market reach. Likewise Cozmo will be able to represent and sell the various RwandAir destinations within the African continent as well their expanding network into Asia and Europe. With a significant population of African nationals working and residing in the GCC region, the focus will be to capitalize on the large network of destinations within the African continent served by RwandAir.”