{"id":8499,"date":"2013-06-17T07:51:31","date_gmt":"2013-06-17T07:51:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/fastjet-to-launch-flights-to-rwanda\/"},"modified":"2013-06-17T08:09:02","modified_gmt":"2013-06-17T08:09:02","slug":"fastjet-to-launch-flights-to-rwanda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/fastjet-to-launch-flights-to-rwanda\/","title":{"rendered":"Fastjet to Launch Flights to Rwanda"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fastjet, the African budget airline, operating from Kenya and Tanzania, will expand its operations soon, with flights to South Africa, Rwanda and Zambia by the end of the year.<\/p>\n

On Friday, the company \u2014 which is backed by Easyjet founder Stelios Haji-Ioannou \u2014 said: \u201cFastjet has been granted permission to launch international flights from Tanzania to South Africa, Zambia and Rwanda.\u201d<\/p>\n

The airline expects to announce soon the launch dates for these flights, \u201cwhich include Dar es Salaam to Johannesburg route, currently served by South African Airways only.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fastjet CEO and chairman Ed Winter said the company was committed to launching its brand in South Africa as soon as possible.<\/p>\n

The news came a fortnight after the airline\u2019s inaugural results showed a $55.3m (about Sh4.7 billion) pre-tax loss for the 18 months ending December 2012, on revenues of $21.1m (Sh1.8 bn).<\/p>\n

In the accompanying auditor\u2019s report, KPMG expressed doubts about the company\u2019s ability to continue as a going concern if it did not gain access to international routes and raise additional funding.<\/p>\n

But on Friday, Mr Ed Winter described the securing of flights out of Tanzania as \u201ca real breakthrough\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what has been holding us back over the past six months,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have spent so much time lobbying to make this happen and had so many false starts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fastjet already operates domestic flights in Angola, Ghana and Kenya under the Fly 540 banner.<\/p>\n

It acquired the Fly 540 business from Lonrho \u2014 which holds a 49 per cent stake in Fastjet \u2014 in July last year.<\/p>\n

However, in its results, the company blamed its poor performance at Fly 540 on a series of legal disputes over the past year.<\/p>\n

Fastjet received route approvals from the relevant governments under the Bilateral Air Services Agreements (BASAs).<\/p>\n

The company also said it was putting its plans to launch a domestic service in South Africa on hold.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a monumental day in Fastjet\u2019s history, and brings us closer to our goal of becoming Africa\u2019s first pan-continental low-cost airline,\u201d said Mr Winter.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will soon announce launch dates for flights to Johannesburg, Kigali and Lusaka from Dar es Salaam,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

NMG<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fastjet, the African budget airline, operating from Kenya and Tanzania, will expand its operations soon, with flights to South Africa, Rwanda and Zambia by the end of the year. On Friday, the company \u2014 which is backed by Easyjet founder Stelios Haji-Ioannou \u2014 said: \u201cFastjet has been granted permission to launch international flights from Tanzania […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[75],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-8499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","tag-homenews","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8499\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8499"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=8499"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=8499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}