Kigali 30 June 2019- RwandAir has announced that it will commence direct flights to the provincial capital of Guangdong and the third largest city in China, effective 18th June, 2019.

The national carrier will fly to Guangzhou three times a week on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Guangzhou will be tagged to the existing Mumbai route and will be operated by Airbus A330 with triple class cabin and equipped with state-of-the-art technology, Wi-Fi onboard, in-flight entertainment and comfortable seats with more legroom making it very convenient for long haul flights.

Commenting on the upcoming launch of the Guangzhou route, Yvonne Manzi Makolo, the CEO of RwandAir, said: “With the increasing volume of trade between African countries and China, the need to meet the high demand of businessmen and traders travelling between Africa and Guangzhou is strongly felt. This new route will open new business opportunities and also increase our passenger and cargo traffic”.

Guangzhou, well known as the “Canton City” is an expansive port city northwest of Hong Kong on the Pearl River. The city, which is one of the major shopping destinations for merchants also features popular tourist attractions such as the iconic Canton Tower and Guangzhou Chime long Tourist Resort which offers an amusement park, international circus, water park, safari park, a bird park and a hotel.

Guangzhou will be RwandAir’s second destination in Asia following Mumbai, which has been operational since April 2017. This new route will extend RwandAir’s network to 28 destinations.

RwandAir has also announced to commence direct flights to Tel Aviv, the economic and technology center of Israel, from its Kigali hub starting from 25th June 2019. This new route will be operated on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays by a Boeing 737-800NG offering 16 seats in business class and 138 seats in economy class. 

RwandAir will connect tourists and business travelers between Tel Aviv and its network three times a week via its Kigali hub, the statements reads partly.  

“Adding Tel Aviv to our network is part of our long term plan to link Rwanda to the rest of the world. Tel Aviv is one of the world’s leading tech hubs and we look forward to flying business travelers as well as pilgrims visiting the Holy Land, to and from our network on this new route.It will also be a great opportunity to ease travel and strengthen diplomatic ties between the two countries” said Yvonne Manzi Makolo.

Recently on 17th April 2019, RwandAir launched flights to Kinshasa. Addis Ababa and Luanda will be added to its expanding network this year in addition to Guangzhou which will start on 18th June 2019. RwandAir also plans to enter the American market with flights to New York.

With a fleet of twelve aircraft including two wide-body Airbus A330, the airline currently reaches out to twenty-seven (27) destinations across East, Central, West and Southern Africa, the Middle East, Europe and Asia.

Previously, RwandAir started flights from Kigali to Mumbai, Harare, London (Gatwick) and Brussels as well as Dakar from its second hub in Cotonou. RwandAir also introduced flights to Abidjan, Libreville and Brazzaville from its Cotonou hub. In April, 2018 RwandAir started flights to Abuja in Nigeria and Cape Town has joined its network effective 16th May, 2018.