RwandAir Set For Fleet And Network Growth In 2019 As It Works To Put Kigali On The International Map
RwandAir has emerged as one of East Africa’s prominent air carriers with a network that now extends outside of the region. Its CEO Yvonne Manzi Makolo reveals fleet and network plans for 2019 that will see the arrival of additional Airbus A330s and the airline’s first Boeing 737MAXs to support growth in Africa and into China and the United States of America (USA). She discusses the Single African Air Transport Market (SAATM) and how it would support RwandAir’s own development and how the airline is working to support its future operations through training and MRO initiatives.
Transcript
Yvonne Manzi Makolo:So in 2019, we're expecting delivery of our 4 new aircraft, 2 widebodies, A330neos, and 2 MAX 8s. And with that, we're looking at expanding our network. We are going to start the Addis route at the beginning of April. We're looking at starting Gwandru this year, and we're working towards the New York route as well, and a few other African markets. I think SAATM SAATM, how is that going? It started off a bit slow, but we're very optimistic that it's going to be implemented fully in the coming years. We have 28 countries that have already signed on to it, and I believe now there's a real momentum to get it up and running, especially in the context of the African Continental Free Trade Area, which will see an increase in trade amongst African countries. And to enable that, we need open skies. So we are very optimistic that this will come to fruition soon and we'll be able to open up new routes without negotiating passes with individual countries. But with that also, it'll come— we will also need to see improved government policies in different countries where we need to see the taxes that are in aviation coming down, free movement of people. So the issue of visas needs to be addressed. But there is a real momentum around the free movement of people and goods. So we're very excited about that. We're actually developing Kigali as a— we have a hub-and-spoke model, so we're looking at developing Kigali as a hub, as an alternative to both the other bigger hubs around the region. We believe there's enough market for us, and we believe with SAATM, with opening up the skies, with getting taxes down, we'll have a lot more people traveling. We'll bring in more of the population into the aviation, traveling by air as opposed to But with that, we'll need to get to see prices coming down in order to accommodate more people who are able to afford to travel by air. To support the growth of the airline, we are looking at starting our own MRO. Currently, we're reliant on outsourcing maintenance for our different fleets. We are also working with our other subsidiaries to develop an aviation academy because skilled resources will be a necessity to support the growth of the airline. So training of pilots, technicians, cabin crew, that's going to be a major focus for the country as well. Thank you.
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