(eTN) – A regular aviation source in Dar es Salaam has confirmed that the airport of Tanzania’s Lake Victoria township of Bukoba, located on the western shores of the lake, and administrative capital of the Kagera region of the country, will see the new facilities officially launched by the end of May this year, at the latest by June.

It is understood that under a program launched some four years ago by the Tanzanian government, aimed to improve aviation infrastructure across the country’s primary and secondary airports as well as a number of aerodromes and airfields, the runway of Bukoba Airport was expanded to 1.7 kilometers in length, all tarmac, finally able to accommodate larger twin-engine turboprop aircraft like the commonly-used ATR planes flown by Precision Air and also small jet aircraft.

Bukoba, thought to now be home of well over 100,000 people, has been lacking regular scheduled flights, and the newly-expanded runway and a new, modern terminal building will facilitate more local airlines to think about launching schedule air links.

The inauguration of the new runway at Bukoba will come only a few months after the Songwe Airport at Mbeya was officially relaunched, where the recently-introduced scheduled flights by Precision Air to Mbeya have vastly improved connectivity to and from other parts of Tanzania.