Etihad announces plans for more destinations in Africa

ETIHAD CONFIRMS FLIGHTS TO TANZANIA FROM DECEMBER 2015

(Posted 22nd September 2014)

Following the announcement by Etihad, Abu Dhabi’s national airline, of flights to Entebbe in the first half of 2015, has the airline now added Dar es Salaam to the growing list of new destinations planned for December next year.

Already flying daily to Nairobi, in code share with Kenya Airways, will the expansion to Tanzania and Uganda next year offer new options how to reach Entebbe and Dar for business or safari vacations while giving the nationals and expatriates of the two new Etihad destinations a wider range of choices which airline to fly with when leaving for abroad.

In Entebbe does Etihad have to contend with such giants like Emirates and Qatar Airways, and come next weekend FlyDubai for passengers to the Gulf and beyond while in Dar es Salaam Etihad will meet their closest rivals again, as Emirates has only recently announced they will add more flights to Dar while Qatar Airways flies there daily.

Etihad, like Qatar Airways, will use their Airbus A320 on the routes to Entebbe and Dar es Salaam, making for tough competition with Emirates which uses exclusively wide bodied aircraft on all their routes to East Africa.

Etihad’s A320 features 16 seats in Business Class and 120 seats in Economy class.

Tanzania’s newfound riches in gas discoveries in the waters off the coast are expected to bring in much additional investor interest, in particular from the oil and gas rich countries of the Gulf, but the country’s tourism attractions like Mt. Kilimanjaro, the Ngorongoro Crater and the Serengeti are also going to be major magnets for passengers to use the new services when they are launched. Watch this space for breaking and regular aviation news from the Eastern Africa region.