East Africa / Gulf aviation news – Kuala Lumpur next for Emirates A 380

EMIRATES ADDS KUALA LUMPUR AS 15^TH A380 DESTINATION

The Kampala office of Emirates has confirmed that come December the route to Kuala Lumpur will be served with the A 380 sky giant from Dubai. Many Ugandans, and in fact East Africans are studying in Malaysia in one of their many universities and lots of them will have the opportunity when coming home for the Christmas holidays to travel on the double decker aircraft, which has added a new dimension to the comfort of air travel in all classes of the aircraft.

Emirates presently already operates 21 weekly nonstop flights between Dubai and Kuala Lumpur and continuously growing demand has now caused the decision to be made that the A380 will be deployed on this route. Malaysia is one of the UAE’s leading trade partners and traffic volumes of passengers and cargo have been rising above average.

Emirates is the world’s largest A 380 customer and is following in the footsteps of Lufthansa and Air France, both of which are already flying this aircraft to Johannesburg, when adding JNB to their A380 destination on October 01^st this year. Entebbe, as was recently reported her, has been designated as an emergency diversion airport enroute.

Watch this space.

 

South Sudan news – EAC and Nile Basin membership quest supported by Rwanda

 

RWANDA BACKS SOUTH SUDAN FOR EAC AND NILE BASIN MEMBERSHIP

Rwanda officially went on record yesterday when expressing their support to the new Republic of South Sudan in their bid to join the Nile Basin Commission and the East African Community, amongst other bodies the new country is set to apply to for membership.

Egypt and the rump state of North Sudan ruled by a regime under ICC wanted Gen. Bashir, are thought to be most opposed to this development, as they loath the idea of another ‘water producer’ joining up with Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Congo DR., Burundi, Tanzania and Ethiopia, pushing the two sole ‘water consumer countries’ into an even more significant minority.

The signing on to the treaty recently by Burundi has made the new Nile Treaty a legal reality and replaces the 1929 and 1959 treaties the British colonialist forced upon their newly independent former colonies and protectorates in East Africa.

Long disputed and eventually ignored, first by Tanzania and then by others too, Egypt had under the old treaties a veto right on projects involving contributory rivers and the lakes Victoria, Kyoga and Albert for the ‘White Nile’ while equally demanding the same rights over Ethiopia’s sovereignity over the ‘Blue Nile’, something more recently firmly rejected by Addis Ababa and put into the ‘realm of myths’.

Predictably will in particular the regime in Khartoum fear that the South Sudan will be siding with their friends in East Africa when it comes to deciding on the portion of Nile water the South will claim as its own, then leaving Khartoum and Cairo to slug it out over the balance of the water left.

Juba is also expected to soon make a formal application for membership in the East African Community, something Khartoum also tried to push on the agenda with little success, as the EAC will remember Khartoum’s obstinate behaviour and foolish interference and oppression inflicted on fellow Africans in the South Sudan, which now controls the majority of the oil produced. Kenya in particular is said to be keen to offer railway and pipeline links to the South Sudan and will push for even closer cooperation between the two countries, already linked with the most flights from anywhere between Nairobi and Juba.

While the EAC is still ‘digesting’ the ascension of Rwanda and Burundi it is quite keen to see the South Sudan apply next, which will then set of a process of between 2 and 4 years to harmonize laws, regulations and economic cooperation on a wide scale before officially admitting RoSS as a full member.

South Sudan’s most important trading partner Uganda is also said to be in full support of upcoming joining applications and like Kenya set to take full advantage of the excellent bilateral relations between the two countries to advance travel and trade.

Watch this space. 

Rwanda aviation news – Turkish announces April 2012 flights to Kigali

TURKISH ANNOUNCES APRIL 2012 FLIGHTS TO KIGALI

Turkish Airlines has yesterday announced their intention to begin flights between Istanbul and Kigali by April next year. The information was given in Kigali by the THY Chief Executive Dr. Temel Kotil when he met with President 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.

Watch this space. 

 

East Africa news update – Power companies blamed for lack of foresight / planning

ELECTRICITY SHORTAGES EXPOSE WOEFUL STATE OF PLANNING

As the East African region continues to suffer from unacceptable and entirely avoidable power cuts business and civil society leaders are ganging up against power companies and government oversight bodies and ministries, demanding answers why such outages should hit the region with a regularity, stemming from negligence and lack of planning.

While Rwanda seems to manage their power shortages in the best possible fashion, Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania have again fallen victim to wide spread ‘load shedding’ a word creation by the electricity companies to explain away their failures.

There is light on the horizon only in Uganda, where the IPS promoted Bujagali Energy will start producing at the very latest by early November, starting with 50 MW and progressively moving to 250 MW by April 2012.

That will allow the country to phase out expensive diesel powered thermal plants, for which contractual subsidies must be paid by government, a crippling burden considering the cost of fuel right now. Still, having no power is more expensive in the long run as industrialists are now vocally protesting against electricity rationing with some threatening to move their businesses to a country where power is assured around the clock and not subject  on / off / on / off schedules.

In Tanzania the problem has been gradually worsening in recent months, are frequently referred to in articles here, but again is attributed to the lack of preventive and scheduled maintenance of power plants, causing breakdowns of equipment and, as recently during a major football cup match, power cuts extending across the entire country.

Even in Kenya were warnings sounded earlier in the week that the country should brace for ‘load shedding’, but the gentle words cannot mask the fact that extended parts of Nairobi and other cities and towns will begin to sit in darkness from tomorrow onwards, as here too hydro generating capacity has suffered from the drought while thermal plants are not operating at full capacity again due to the current cost of fuels.

Kenya presently has 650 MW of wind power under development in two approved plants in the Turkana area and is hastening, belatedly it must be said, the exploration for geothermal power sources, where in particular in the Menengai crater area of Nakuru drilling is ongoing and added generation, on a 10MW at a time feed, is being pursued.

However, the crucial words are belated and unprepared, as power distributors and power producers were long aware of medium term weather and rain forecasts and had experience from their colleagues in the region of breakdowns of equipment caused by lack of maintenance, or shutdown of thermal plants due to lack of fuel.

For sure one thing across the region is a constant, that in times of economic hardship governments and regulators better not mess with the private sector, which is the only source able to improve the immediate outlook and that is exactly what is being done right now. ‘Lack of electricity has shot back to the top of the business associations agendas in all of East Africa. But that is being chased by demands from business leaders for more prudent spending of our tax money, cutting out waste in government and bringing corruption under control. When business confidence suffers as it does right now, governments cannot ignore justifiable demands by the business community and think it will not be forgotten. If the business community turns their support and allegiance away from government, how can they sustain themselves beyond the next elections? We are tired of hearing their songs about private sector being the engine of growth and yet they starve that very engine of fuel. Let them know they are being closely watched’ said one leading association head in Kampala to this correspondent, serving notice of discontent on behalf of his membership.

Meanwhile though the region is struggling to continue live as ‘normal’ albeit without power every second night in Uganda and more irregular power cuts in Kenya and Tanzania. Businesses and those domestic households which can afford the expense are also investing where possible in solar panels and inverter systems or else pay through the proverbial nose for diesel or petrol to power their inhouse generators.

Watch this space. 

Ethiopian aviation news – ET gets 5th B777-200LR

ETHIOPIAN TAKES DELIVERY OF 5^TH NEW B777

A brand new B777-200LR has last weekend joined the Ethiopian fleet, the fifth such aircraft. The airline also kept the tradition to name these ‘birds’ after landmarks in Africa, the latest being christened ‘Sahara’.

The sister ships already in operation were named Blue Nile, Rift Valley, Victoria Falls and Mt. Kilimanjaro, carrying the attractions and sights of Africa around the world.

Ethiopian Airlines is one of two pan African airlines connecting Africa through their hub to a growing number of cities across the continent and has been at the forefront to promote inter African travel by air for decades. The airline is undergoing a rapid fleet modernization programme with a number of B787 on order and flies in code share with Lufthansa from Frankfurt 10 times a week, then feeding and de-feeding traffic at their Addis Ababa hub. ET is due to join global aviation industry leader Star Alliance later this year at which stage their visibility and connectivity will strengthen yet more.

Happy Landings to ‘Sahara’ wherever she carries the colours of Africa.

 

Kenya aviation news – KQ launches ‘Change for Change’ project

CHANGE MAKES CHANGE

Kenya Airways has began to accept voluntary contributions from passengers, happy to donate ‘excess’ coins but also notes for that matter, for funding of the airline’s charitable programmes across the network.

Besides Kenya, where KQ’ corporate responsibility projects have made a big impact on society, and on the environment through their ‘plant a future’ treeplanting campaign in the Ngong Hills, the airlines has also been supporting carefully selected projects in Nigeria, Zambia, Malawi, Tanzania and Uganda.

This latest campaign however also accepts, besides the cash, requests from passengers which projects should be supported in their home country reflecting the interactive nature of Kenya Airways’ initiative.

With over 3 million passengers carried per annum the level of contributions anticipated will make a substantial impact on the lives of many deserving people, all due to ‘Change for Change’.

Well done!