Aviation news from East Africa

KLM Royal Dutch Airlines operated its first flight to Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, on 31 October 2010. Five flights a week will be offered to Kigali with an intermediate stopover in Entebbe (Uganda). The new service will be operated using Airbus A330-200 equipment, offering seats for 243 passengers.
KLM and Air France (they merged in 2004) is now serving 43 African destinations at a frequency of more than 200 flights a week.
A cooperation with Kenya Airways will also make it possible for KLM to offer a more extensive network with even more destinations and higher frequencies in East Africa. Operating from the its Nairobi hub, Kenya Airways offers flights to destinations including Ndola, Harare, Mombassa, Lusaka, Lilongwe, Bujumbura and Zanzibar. In cooperation with Kenya Airways, Air France also offers flights to destinations including Dzaoudzi and Moroni via Nairobi.

Kenya Airways, the flag carrier of the East African country, will launch a Nairobi <> Rome (Italy) service from December 2010. The airline is then operationg flights to the four European destinations Amsterdam, London, Paris and Rome. Kenya Airways currently flies to 50 destinations worldwide, 41 of them in Africa.

A move by local carriers to introduce and increase flights to the Kenyan coast will be a boost for the whole region. Low-cost airline Fly540 startet a Nairobi <> Diani service on 11 Nov 2010 and will add flights to Ukundu in December 2010. Flag carrier Kenya Airways will add flights to Malindi in December 2010. In the recent past KQ has already increased frequencies to Mombasa (ex Nairobi) from 42 to 59 every week.

Ethiopian Airlines has joined the Star Alliance network. The airline became the 30th member in total and the third African carrier in the alliance, joining Egyptair and South African Airways. Ethiopian Airlines is adding five new countries (namely Chad, Congo, Rep. of Djibuti, Mali & Niger) and 24 African destinations to the Star Alliance network. The network has currently 30 carriers and is offering a choice of close to 25000 daily flights to 1196 destinations in 186 countries.

German airline Air Berlin is now offering a weekly direct service between Berlin (Germany) and Mombasa (Kenya). The new flight service departs Berlin at 20:00 every Thursday, landing in Mombasa at 06:40am the next day.