Fly 540 Tanzania news update

LOW FARES BY FLY540 RATTLE TANZANIAN COMPETITION

The recent introduction of flights between Dar es Salaam, Tanzania’s Indian Ocean port city, and Mwanza, the Tanzanian Lake Victoria municipality, has hit the market with a ‘bang’ as the fares charged by Fly540 are reportedly as much as 50 percent lower than the ones demanded for by for instance Air Tanzania. While Precision Air, which incidentally is preparing for an IPO on the Tanzanian financial market, is downplaying the competitive threat, Air Tanzania, struggling as it is against its financial expiry, seems more concerned about the latest entrant on the domestic market in Tanzania. Left with reportedly only one operational aircraft the erstwhile national airline has seen its fortunes plummet, its markets taken over by Precision – and now Fly 540 overtaking it too and been subject to a range of allegations over financial dealings, exposed by WikiLeaks documents in recent weeks.

Considering the cut throat competition on the Kenyan domestic market, where of late Kenya Airways has gone on a major marketing offensive for their routes between Nairobi to Mombasa and to Kisumu, which has already led to the takeover of EASAX by Fly540, it will be interesting to see how competition will play out on the Tanzanian market. Watch this space.