Low-cost airlines join scramble for East Africa traffic

Competition for air passenger traffic in East Africa is expected to grow in coming months as two international players target key destinations.

Low-cost airlines fastjet and flydubai both announced new routes this week to take advantage of growing demand in the region as well as the withdrawal of Air Uganda’s international air operator’s licence in June this year.

The move will have an impact on established carriers like Kenya Airways (whose low-cost arm, JamboJet, was launched in February), which had picked up traffic on former Air Uganda routes. The suspended airline used to fly from Uganda’s Entebbe airport to Nairobi, Dar es Salaam, Bujumbura, Kigali, Mogadishu, Kilimanjaro, Mombasa and Juba.

READ: Air Uganda returns leased aircraft following withdrawal of licence.

On Monday, fastjet PLC said it has begun selling tickets “from as low as $50 plus government taxes” for flights between Dar es Salaam and Entebbe, which are to begin on September 16. The pan-African airline, which is headquartered in the United Kingdom, says apart from introducing the “market stimulating fares”, it will offer the only direct air link between the two towns with a frequency of four flights a week from the end of the month.

“Since Air Uganda ceased flying, the fares offered by other carriers for flights in and out of the country have risen steadily,” said the airline.

Fastjet, which has its operational base in Dar es Salaam and plans to move it to Kenya once it obtains its licence, flies to Kilimanjaro, Mbeya, Mwanza and Zanzibar, all in Tanzania, as well as Harare in Zimbabwe, Johannesburg (South Africa) and Lusaka (Zambia).

READ: Fastjet re-enters local market in new joint venture.

The Dubai Aviation Corporation, trading as flydubai, on Saturday announced three new routes — to Bujumbura, Entebbe and Kigali — beginning this month. The airline, which already serves six African destinations from Dubai, has also obtained the rights to carry passengers between Uganda and Burundi.

“Flydubai becomes the first national carrier from the United Arab Emirates to fly to Rwanda and Burundi,” Chief Executive Ghaith Al Ghaith said. He adds that his airline is the only one offering business class between Dubai and Burundi. He hopes to win a chunk of the region’s tourism and trade traffic.

Within Africa, flydubai currently has scheduled flights to Alexandria in Egypt, Khartoum and Port Sudan in Sudan, Juba in South Sudan, Ethiopia's Addis Ababa as well as Djibouti's capital Djibouti.