It is D-Day for ‘Umurage’ to come home to Kigali

RWANDAIR TAKES DELIVERY OF SECOND AIRBUS A330

(Posted 01st December 2016)

(‘Umurage‘ or ‘Heritage‘ is the second Airbus A330 delivered to RwandAir)

Expected to land in Kigali around 16.00 hrs (4 p.m.) local time is ‘Umurage‘ now being readied in Toulouse at the Airbus assembly plant for the flight home to Rwanda, where she will join sister ship ‘Ubumwe‘.
RwandAir as of today owns two Airbus A330’s, one previously delivered -200 and one larger -300 variant, which will be deployed on flights to Lagos, Dubai and early next year also to Mumbai, expanding the reach of the airline for the first time to another continent.
This latest delivery brings the number of aircraft on RwandAir’s fleet to eleven overall after the recent arrival of another brand new Boeing B737-800NG named ‘Kalisimbi‘ after Rwanda’s highest mountain.
With now 3 B737-800NG’s – a fourth is due to be delivered by May 2017 – and 2 B737-700NG’s, 2 Bombardier Q400NG’s, two Bombardier CRJ900’s and as of today two Airbus A330’s on their books has RwandAir entered the African big league of airlines and notably so by purchasing brand new aircraft.
RwandAir has been re-certified by IATA under the latest e-IOSA audit scheme for safe operations and more recently also attained IATA’s ISAGO certification for safe ground operations. The airline presently is the only provider of ground handling services at Kigali’s international airport and in particular global players like Brussels Airlines, KLM, Qatar Airways and Turkish, all handled by RwandAir, now insist on such certifications.
Connecting Africa from Kigali across the East, the West and also Southern Africa are aviation pundits expecting the airline to exceed 700.000 passengers this year, due to rise to over a million when the next B737 has been delivered and long haul flights been launched to India and Europe before also spreading the wings to China and the United States.
Fully owned by the government of Rwanda is the airline seen as a strategic asset to support the country’s fast growing tourism industry. The sector has benefitted this year from the inauguration of the new Kigali Convention Centre, the adjoining Radisson Blu Hotel and the Kigali Marriott Hotel, all aimed to boost MICE business and turn Rwanda into a major meeting and conference hub in Africa.
Happy Landings to ‘Umurage‘ and her crews and passengers in coming years.