Qatar plane (background) at Kigali International Airport
Passengers and local businesses that have been dealing with Qatar airways have a reason to smile again.
The Middle-East based carrier will resume its activities in Rwanda effective Friday September 1st.
On July 3rd, Qatar Officials announced the suspension of its direct flights to Kigali until September due to ‘operational reasons’.
Media reports indicated that the carrier was obliged to suspend its flights in the region due to insecurity that had been characterizing Qatar and its neighbouring Arab countries.
In the meantime, Qatar airways had maintained it’s flights to the rest of the world through Iran and Turkey after countries like Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Egypt had blocked its planes from using their airspace.
Since the carrier suspended flights to Kigali, passengers were using Entebbe-Nairobi route to connect to Doha, either by RwandAir or Kenya Airways.
“Qatar Airways resumes Rwanda service, from 01st September 2017. Doha-Entebbe-Kigali- DOH Aircraft: A330-200 (from 1st to 30 September), A320 (from 01 November 2017),” announced Rwanda Civil Aviation Authority in a tweet.
Qatar had been operating in Rwanda since 2012. The Carrier made business partners along the operations in Rwanda including Lemigo Hotel which has been accommodating Qatar staff.
Since Qatar announced this suspension, some businesses started counting losses.
The five-star airline had planned to invest nearly US$50billion (equivalent to 270 new airplanes) in nine years.
