RwandAir purchases two Boeing planes
RwandAir, the country’s main airline, said on August 27 that it had bought two Boeing 737-800 planes, one of which is already in use.
The airline told The New Times in a statement on Wednesday afternoon that recently fixed planes are now back in service. A third one is planned for the fourth quarter of this year.
Each of the two Boeing 737-800s has 12 seats in Business Class and 162 seats in Economy Class. They will mostly be used for short and medium-haul trips.
Later this year, in the fourth quarter, RwandAir expects to receive a wide-body Airbus A330-200. This will help the airline improve its long-haul flights between Africa and places around the world.
In a statement, the airline’s CEO, Yvonne Makolo, said, “RwandAir is pleased to have resolved the issues that had been causing delays over the last few weeks and to welcome our aircraft back into service.”
“We’re truly sorry for any problems this caused with our customers’ travel plans during this time, and we appreciate their patience while we worked to fix the problems.”
“The strengthened fleet, along with the arrival of new aircraft, will allow RwandAir to improve reliability, strengthen our schedules, and give all of our passengers an even better journey experience.”
Unexpected technical problems happened in some of RwandAir’s planes, which briefly limited the number of planes that could be used for flights.
This meant that schedules had to be changed for some services, but the airline said that these problems have now been fixed and the affected plane is back in service.
It said that RwandAir’s decision to buy both narrow-body and wide-body planes shows its strategy focus on travel within Africa and its goal of connecting Africa to the rest of the world.
Before it bought the two Boeing planes, RwandAir had a fleet of 14 planes made by Boeing, Airbus, and Bombardier. With the new planes, the carrier now has at least 16 planes in its fleet.
As of 2023, just over one million people were flying with the company. By 2029, they want to have 21 planes and more than 2.1 million passengers.
