RWANDAIR UPGRADES TECHNOLOGY SYSTEMS AHEAD OF NEXT AIRCRAFT DELIVERY
(Posted 13th May 2015)
With RwandAir’s next aircraft delivery coming closer, the airline will soon receive a second Bombardier Q400NextGen on a long term lease, are passenger numbers relentlessly rising, in particular transit traffic from across Africa via Kigali into the growing WB network.
The launch at the end of March of Lusaka flights and the return to Kamembe when the runway repairs and extension works are completed, will bring extra numbers on board the airline’s soon to be eight aircraft fleet and ever looking ahead has RwandAir now signed up with Rockwell Collins for an initial five year contract to use their state of the art ARINC vMUSE common use check-in platform, ARINC AirVue Flight Information Display System (FIDS), and AirDB 7, the latest generation ARINC Airport Operational Database (AODB) system.
According to a source close to the airline will this move towards the use of the latest technological systems available on the market also prepare for the planned introduction of two Airbus A330-200 wide body jets which are expected as early as late 2016, the exact dates to be advised nearer to the time, and the resulting upsurge in destinations and passenger numbers flying into and through Kigali.
With the re-development and expansion of Kigali’s international airport now complete, now offering six instead of the previous two departure gates and three times as many check in counters, is RwandAir now clearly ready for the next phase of expansion.
Since Q3 of last year has RwandAir also made Entebbe a minihub with daily flights, under Ugandan fifth freedom rights, to and from Juba and Nairobi. The Ugandan traveling public has warmly embraced if not outright adopted the airline as their own, following the blunders of the Uganda Civil Aviation Authority in mid 2014 which led to the closure of quasi national airline Air Uganda. Watch this space for breaking and regular aviation news from the Eastern African region.
