Purposely to expand Rwanda’s footprint across all West African countries while encouraging increased safaris to Rwanda, Rwandair has been granted a fifth freedom right on Abuja-Younde Route. This comes after the opening of the national carrier’s direct flight to West Africa, which has encouraged an increased number of travelers coming in for Rwanda safaris to explore the beauty the country offers. With the fifth freedom right, the Rwandair is permitted to operate flights between two different countries with no restrictions. In this case the national carrier will fly into Nigeria to Abuja ad then connect to Yaoundé without any hindrance. As of now, Rwandair can fly into Abuja and also pick Yaoundé bound passengers with no any hindrances to any other destination. Rwanda air also has an additional entry point into Abuja and the right to exercise 5th freedom traffic right between Abuja and Yaoundé in Cameroon. Also, Rwanda’s national carrier has got joint airspace service agreement allowing it to operate another route into Nigeria to Abuja and also ply the Abuja-Yaoundé’ route without any hindrances. The director air transport management on behalf of Nigeria’s state minister for aviation proved this. With the 5th freedom right, Rwandair can now carry passengers from one country to another and from that country to a third country. The national carrier already operates the Lagos routes
while Abuja route is expected to be opened in January 2018.
According to the officials of Rwandair, the right to freely carry passengers form one country to another and from that country to the third one is a big boost to Rwanda Air’s quest to expand its footprint on the continent. The recent negotiations and signing of the bilateral air service agreement with Cape Verde, which opened more potential market opportunities for Rwandair and Rwanda’s private sector.
To make transport much more easier /encourage more travelers to the land of a thousand hills, Rwanda plans to launch direct flights to New York in the United States and other Asian Countries in 2018. Rwanda’s national carrier is also to introduce flights to Conakry in Guinea, Bamako in Mali and Dakar in Senegal the coming year (2018). Other planned destinations are Lilongwe in Malawi and Durban in South Africa. In 2016, Rwandair acquired its forest A330 series (A330-200 and A330-300Airbus aircraft) to boost its fleet and capacity o compete globally.
With the new improvements, RwandAir is expected to carry over 3 million travelers which hope is brought by the 650,000 passengers which RwandAir carried last year.
This has been clarified by the operational safety audit of International Air Transport Association (IATA). Rwandaairs direct flight to West Africa and United Kingdom is an advantage for those coming to Rwanda gorillas safari and other tourism activities in all parts of Rwanda. There is great hope that the ease of accessibility is one of the fey factors for the success of Rwanda’s tourism industry. Tourism statistics indicate that Rwanda receives the highest population of travelers from all parts of the world compared to Uganda, Burundi and Democratic Republic of Congo.
Conclusively therefore, the issuing of the fifth freedom right to Abuja-Yaounde’ route is a great achievement of the national carrier hence a great hope for the development of tourism industry in Rwanda.