(eTN) – Turkish Airlines (THY) announced yesterday its intention to begin flights between Istanbul and Kigali by April of next year. The information was given in Kigali by the THY Chief Executive, Dr. Temel Kotil, when he met with the President of the Republic of Rwanda, Paul Kagame.
It was also announced that cooperation between RwandAir and Turkish will be stepped up, with codeshare arrangements being put into place under which the two partners can choose a range of “beyond” destinations from the hubs in Istanbul and Kigali. Fleet maintenance and capacity building support was also discussed between RwandAir – due to get their first ever B737-800 in less than a month from now – and Turkish with the latter going to provide technical support and training opportunities.
It could not be ascertained, however, if the flights between Kigali and Istanbul would be nonstop or route either via or on to another African destination of Turkish, which has in recent years been aggressively expanding to now 142 destinations via their Istanbul hub, including 17 cities in Africa.
