First Airbus A330 for East Africa sets new cabin standards

RwandAir, the national flag carrier of the Republic of Rwanda, has confirmed that the cabin interior of the new Airbus A330 will introduce a Premium Economy Class as a first in Africa besides a 1x2x1 configuration in Business Class and a 2x4x2 configuration in Economy Class.

As part of RwandAir ’s expansion strategy, in the last quarter of this year, RwandAir will add six destinations in Africa and commence long-haul operations to Mumba and Guangzhou. This will be enabled by its acquisition of two wide-bodied A330 aircraft and two additional Boeing B737-800NG aircraft.

The airline also confirmed the successful renewal of their initial IOSA certification. The latest audit followed already the enhanced IOSA rules under the IATA-IOSA registry, and the certification will be valid from June 13 of this year until 2018. The airline’s first certification was obtained in June 2014.

The IATA Operational Safety Audit (IOSA) is an internationally-recognized and accepted evaluation system designed to assess the operational management and control systems of an airline, which occurs every two years once the airline successfully completes the first audit. “Renewing our IOSA registration is vital to the sustainability of RwandAir as it ensures continuous development of IATA standards, regulatory requirements, and industry best practices within its operations,” said Mrs. Sonia Kamikazi, the Corporate Quality Assurance Manager of the airline who oversaw the preparations for the two audits. RwandAir passed the IOSA renewal audit with an exemplary report that had minimal findings and observations, following the audit conducted on RwandAir’s operations system from January 29 to February 4, 2016 by the audit organization WAKE QA.

As safety remains the number one priority, preparations for the ISAGO certification, the IATA Safety Audit for Ground Operations are also in full force, with a formal audit anticipated for later this month.