KIGALI: Rwanda's national airline said it expects the number of its passengers to rise to one million over the next five years, boosted by the launch of new routes after the acquisition of new Airbus planes.
On Wednesday the carrier, RwandAir, received an A330-200, one of two new jets it contracted Airbus to supply a year ago. The second, an Airbus A330-300, is expected to arrive in November.
John Mirenge, the company chief executive officer, said at a ceremony to receive the plane at Kanombe International Airport in the capital Kigali that the new planes would allow RwandAir to launch new routes to Europe, India and China.
"(In) five years we are looking at more than a million passengers," he said. They would start flying on the new routes as soon as the second aircraft arrived, "probably by the beginning of the year", he added.
For the year ending July 2017, Mirenge said RwandAir was targeting a total of 750,000 passengers, up from 600,000 in the previous period. RwandAir officials say the airline expects to break even by 2018, and plans to carve out a niche by connecting under-served destinations across Africa.
The firm has signed a deal with Eastern and Southern African Trade and Development (PTA) Bank for a $160 million loan to help partly finance purchase of the two jets.
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