Fly 540 Africa

RwandAir, the national carrier has acquired another Boeing 737-800NG that is named Kalisimbi. The plane left Seattle in the United States on Monday and landed at Kigali International Airport at around 5h:30 PM.

The Boeing aircraft is the first of two new orders from the American manufacturer. This plane is a property of the RWANDAIR and is labeled “Boeing 737-800 Next Generation”..

The new aircraft is expected to increase the airline’s fleet to ten aircraft and it is expected to facilitate the carrier’s growing routes on the continent and beyond.

The airline in September acquired brand new Airbus 330-200, -nicknamed ‘Ubumwe’ (unity).

The expansion of the fleet is at a time when the airline is preparing to start flights to Gatwick, London’s second-busiest airport next year and is also eyeing the American market in the course of 2017.

In recent months the airline has launched flights to Cotonou, Benin and Abidjan, ivory coastbring the total number of destinations to 19 destinations.

Others include including Nairobi, Entebbe, Mombasa, Bujumbura, Lusaka, Juba, Douala, Dar es Salaam, Kilimanjaro, Cotonou, Johannesburg, Dubai, Lagos, Libreville and Brazzaville.

The airline is also set to open routes to Harare in Zimbabwe and Mumbai, India in coming days.

The expansion is also based on projections that the airline’s capacity could grow from the current 500,000 passengers annually to more than 3,000,000 in the next five years.