TURKISH MAKES MAIDEN FLIGHT TO MOMBASA
Turkish Airlines has yesterday commenced scheduled flights into Mombasa, serving Kenya’s coastal city now 5 times a week. Passengers connecting from Turkish’s global network via Istanbul will now have the option to fly to THY’s second Kenyan destination, after Nairobi, every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday, leaving IST at 18.10 hrs before reaching MBA, via JRO, at 03.55 hrs the next morning.
The coast tourism fraternity enthusiastically welcomed the new flight, which was the first bit of aviation good news since both Qatar and Brussels Airlines had announced they would after all not start their planned flights to Mombasa while other charter airlines withdrew from the route due to insufficient demand.
Tour operators from across Europe offering safaris to Tanzania and beach holidays to Kenya have equally expressed their support for the new flight, one of the few international scheduled services connecting major airlines to Mombasa, Star Alliance partners Ethiopian being the other one. Local tourism representatives were united in endorsing the sentiments of a regular contributor who said: ‘This is very good news ahead of the festive season. Turkish now connects Mombasa 5 times a week with all their destinations. I read you wrote they now have the largest global reach which means they can bring tourists from North America and Europe but also from Asia. Our emerging markets in Asia and Eastern Europe are doing well and it is now up to us here in Kenya to promote ourselves. Turkish has offered concessionary travel so we can work with them to put missions together to market Kenya. We are happy that such a big airline shares our own confidence in Kenya to start up with 5 flights a week’.
Across the border in Tanzania safari operators too were enthusiastic when the inaugural flight touched down at Kilimanjaro International Airport outside Arusha. The efforts by Turkish to promote the destination has according to information received from Arusha already resulted in new business for the Northern safari circuit, which includes such global brand names like the Serengeti, Ngorongoro, Lake Manyara and Tarangire national parks.
Happy landings to Turkish Airlines, their crews and passengers.
