Fastjet has announced that they will be launching flights between Kilimanjaro International Airport and Entebbe on March 31, extending the present Dar es Salaam to Entebbe service with the stop at Kilimanjaro International Airport (JRO).
Arusha, some 50 kilometers away, is the seat of the East Africa Community, and as such, a center of political gravity for the region. Travelers to Arusha have over the past 9 months had to contend with indirect flights via Kigali with RwandAir or via Nairobi with Kenya Airways/Precision Air, and the newly-restored option of nonstop flights will no doubt be appealing to many.
The combination of the two routes is also thought to be raising the load factors on the route for Fastjet, which had launched the Dar to Entebbe route last year but was looking for a passenger boost.
Only a few weeks ago, Fastjet launched flights from Kilimanjaro to Mwanza, giving travelers booking early, the option to fly at a cost not much greater than a bus fare.
There has, sadly for Fastjet, not been any movement on them getting landing rights in Nairobi for which the airline, designated on the route by the Tanzanian Civil Aviation Authority, has applied earlier last year. Also still stuck in government “bureaucrazy,” pun intended, is the airline’s application to set up a business in Kenya, where no air service license has been granted yet.
Next on the horizon for Fastjet will be the launch of their operation in Zambia where the airline plans to fly from Lusaka to Johannesburg and on the domestic routes to Livingstone and other key Zambian towns.
