Once approved by the US President, the order issued May 30th shall become effective on the 61st day after its submission for review or upon the date of receipt of advice from the President or his designee.
Worth celebrating
Bonaventure Sinamenye, the Marketing Manager of ‘Show me Around Rwanda Safari’, a local private tour and travel company says allowing RwandAir US flights is a good step towards the success of the tourism sector.
“There are many prospects. An American who used to connect flights will now fly direct to Rwanda. It will spur services and get us many clients. Many of tourists we receive are Americans and British,” he considers.
Bonita Mutoni Chairperson of Rwanda Tours and Travel Association (RTTA) says that the new route is an opportunity to boost business for tour operators.
“The opening of this route comes as a great opportunity to boost business especially for tour operators as the USA is our number one source of tourists. This will make it easier for agents and tourists to choose Rwanda due to improved connectivity to the destination,” she says.
According to Sanny Ntayombya, the Head of Communications and Marketing at Rwanda Development Board (RDB), RwandAir’s direct flights to US will help Rwanda achieve the target receipts of $800 million by 2024.
“By serving the US market, Rwandair is enabling the growth of not only the country’s tourism industry, but its exports as well. Currently, the US is our largest tourism market and with Rwandair’s direct flights, we shall become even more accessible to this essential tourism market. We aim to double our tourism earnings from $404 million in 2017 to $800 million by 2024. This move by Rwandair will support this goal. Secondly, our exporters will be able to ensure that our products are shipped to the US faster and more affordably,” he says.
Government welcome the development
The State Minister for Transport in the Ministry of Infrastructure, Jean de Dieu Uwihanganye said that RwandAir’s US route is a blessing to air transport.
“Rwanda is a landlocked country; this means that we need to use air transport in connecting with other countries across the World. In terms of tourism as high end sector, we receive many tourists from US, so this move will facilitate their inflow. Rwandans will also easily travel to US and other parts of the American continent. Our country has preferred to develop air transportation in the seven-year government programme as a development accelerator,” he explained.
Once RwandAir is fully authorized, according to the Order by US, will be able to engage in scheduled foreign air transportation of persons, property and mail from points behind Rwanda via Rwanda and intermediate points to a point or points in the United States and beyond.
It will also engage in scheduled foreign air transportation of property and mail between the United States and any point or points among other services.
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