LUSAKA AND HARARE TOO SET FOR ZANZIBAR CONNECTIONS
(Posted 02nd December 2015)
Further to the breaking news yesterday that Fastjet was returning to Zanzibar with a direct flight from Johannesburg, via Dar es Salaam, could it also be established that the airline will offer passengers from Zimbabwe and Zambia a similar option.
The daily flights between Harare, Lusaka and Dar es Salaam will connect seamlessly on to the airline’s upcoming Zanzibar service which will be launched on the 11th of January 2016.
Schedule adjustments will permit passengers coming from Zimbabwe and Zambia to immediately transit on to the Zanzibar flight after their arrival in Dar es Salaam and with a dispatch reliability of over 90 percent of all flights leaving and arriving on time will travel to Zanzibar certainly be made much easier for travelers from South and Southern Africa.
Tourism stakeholders on Zanzibar have expressed broad support for the new connection as it will also allow visitors from the Tanzanian mainland to use the airline for the short flight to the main Zanzibari island of Unguja. Several hotelier spoken with over the past few days expressed their excitement to have another direct flight from Johannesburg to serve the South African market which has been growing fast since the launch of direct flights by other airlines but the addition of both Zimbabwe and Zambia has clearly widened the opportunities for the resorts on the Spice Island to sell holiday packages in Harare and Lusaka.
Additional information is also awaited on the additional routes Fastjet is expecting out of Harare as well as the operations start in Zambia, where local airlines are reportedly exploiting their monopoly with high fares, setting the scene for Fastjet to bring the cost of air travel down considerably and, as seen in other countries, attract an entirely new generation of passengers flying probably for the first time due to the affordable fare levels. For breaking and regular aviation news from across Eastern Africa look no further but this space.
