RwandAir appoints Bert van der Stege as new General Manager / Commercial

RWANDAIR APPOINTS NEW GENERAL MANAGER COMMERCIAL

Breaking news just in from a regular source in Kigali tells the story of a management reshuffle with the appointment of Mr. Bert van der Stege, who joined the company as General Manager Commercial, elsewhere known as Commercial Director or Chief Commercial Officer earlier in the month.
Bert can look back at a significant career with Lufthansa since 1999, before joining West Africas Arik Air in 2010 as a Vice President, an airline now operating some 24 aircraft used on domestic, regional and international routes including New York and London.
Meanwhile will all aspects of sales be handled by Ms. Alice Katiti, previously holding this position while a new position for Manager Corporate and Strategic Planning will be taken on by Ms. Lilian Kyatengwa, who was formerly in charge of sales.
The information now obtained indicates that RwandAir is fast becoming a major regional aviation force and is clearly intent to not just cement their position in the region as the fourth largest airline after ET, KQ and PW but is planning to become a major African player as the airline moves progressively towards the delivery of more aircraft ahead of the arrival of two B787 Dreamliners in 2015/16, at which stage RwandAir will go intercontinental.
Congratulations to Bert on his appointment and all the best to each and every one of the WB team in their respective positions.

South Sudan opens one stop investment centre in Juba

INVESTMENT CENTRE OPENS IN JUBA AS FIRST HIGHRISE BUILDING PLANS REVEALED
The government in Juba has opened their first dedicated investment one stop centre last weekend it was learned from a regular source in South Sudans capital.
Potential investors, often taken aback by the bureaucracy involved to open shop in South Sudan, have greeted the decision with relief, as it will make visits to a myriad of different offices in different locations unnecessary, once the centre is fully operating. The source from Juba also added that the new facility would aim at halving the time needed to start a business in South Sudan from over two weeks to just one week, progress of sorts but compared with Rwanda, where RDB now guarantees a business start up within 6 hours, still way to go to make investors feel they are truly being facilitated as they expect, especially now that a number of enabling investment related laws have been passed by the parliament in Juba..
Larger scale investments are being targeted by the South Sudan government but have been hard to come by in recent months, as tensions between the South and the erstwhile slave masters in Khartoum reached new levels with regular skirmishes along the common, yet largely not demarcated border, besides the huge controversy of legitimate Southern claims to expand the territory of the new state to the 1956 borders, something the regime in Khartoum has already rejected and threatened to go to war if they could not keep the clearly illegally annexed parts of pre-independence Southern land.
At the same time it was also learned that the International Finance Corporation, the World Banks private sector lending arm, will inject some 5 million US Dollars into a property development which is set to construct Jubas first ever high rise building, dubbed the Equatoria Tower in the heart of the city. Promoted by UAP Insurance together with the Central Equatoria Investment Company, the tower will be the first modern building meeting standards already applied in the wider East African region and surely is a harbinger of things to come, once the South Sudan finds peace and the chance to develop and make economic progress. Watch this space.

Turkish Airlines makes Kigali their 20th African destination

TURKISH MAKES KIGALI THEIR 20TH AFRICAN DESTINATION

The arrival in Kigali of Turkish Airlines makes it three new connections this year which Rwanda has established with the rest of the world over the past few months. Turkish, a Star Alliance member, joins alliance partners Brussels Airlines, Ethiopian Airlines and South African Airways in Kigali, adding another feather in Stars cap of being the global alliance with the most connections within and into Africa.
THY will initially fly three times a week between Istanbul and Kigali, using a B737-800 in a two class cabin configuration, also offering a non palleted cargo uplift capacity of up to 7 tons. The airline has last year also signed an extensive MoU with RwandAir, under which technical cooperation and schedule alignment, amongst other areas has been agreed, and though no code share is in place at present, this has not been ruled out by a usually well informed source for the future who said: Turkish now flies to 150 destinations internationally besides their big domestic network. So it is of interest for RwandAir to see what advantages can be gained by a potential code share arrangement, which could open up more destinations in America, Europe and the Far East before they get their own wide bodied planes in 2015 or 2016. When done with the right partners it can prepare certain markets for direct flights from Kigali in the future.
On the inaugural flight was Turkishs CEO Dr. Temel Kotil accompanied by senior airline executives and a sizeable business delegation from Turkey, which has established a close political and economic working relationship with Rwanda over the past years.
A regular tourism source was swift to say: The arrival of Turkish will add more seats to the market and allow travelers to bypass other regional hubs and come directly to Rwanda. The airline will now very actively promote this new destination and we from the private sector will join then together with RDB to tap into their overseas markets and bring visitors in. When they promote we gain, when they sell seats we gain. It is a win win situation for us when a new airlines starts and it will help Rwanda to affirm to the world that we are able to host conferences and meetings just as much as we can host individuals and tour groups who come to see our gorillas or visit the other two parks or hike the birding trails or the Congo Nile Trail. And new airlines are not at the expense of our own national airline RwandAir, because passengers can even connect with RwandAir to the region if they want to see some other countries while in Africa.
From me it is Happy Landings to the crews and passengers of Turkish Airlines and welcome at last to Rwanda.

RwandAir set to announce Mwanza flights

RWANDAIR ADDS MWANZA AS NEXT DESTINATION

A regular source in Kigali has confirmed that RwandAir will be adding Mwanza, Tanzanias main Lake Victoria township, to their growing list of destinations as the airline continues to expand. The flights are due to commence in June, just weeks from now, and preparations are in high gear to add another Tanzanian gateway to RwandAirs regional flight network. The airline is already serving both Dar es Salaam and Kilimanjaro International outside Arusha with flights on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays.
This information comes only days after the airline announced that starting June 10th they will go daily to Johannesburg, serving notice to their immediate rivals that they are an airline on the prowl, set to expand their reach in their task to connect the Land of a Thousand Hills across the region and the continent at large.
RwandAir, with the full backing of the government in Kigali, has been progressively implementing their strategic and business plans, acquired two brand new B737-800 last year and has two brand new Bombardier CRJ900 on order, due for delivery in October this year. Only on Monday this week Bombardiers also showed off their latest Q400 NextGen aircraft in Kigali, as RwandAir ponders the acquisition of larger turboprop aircraft to be deployed on their domestic services to Kamembe, where demand for flights in particular from Congolese travelers across the common border has been showing impressive growth rates.
Watch this space for breaking and regular news from Eastern Africas exciting aviation sector.

Mombasa’s Bella Vista Night Club hit by attempted attack

MOMBASA NIGHTSPOT HIT BY ALLEGED TERRORISTS
The Moi Avenue based Bella Vista Night Club and Restaurant in Mombasa was hit last evening by what has been described as both gunfire and an explosion. While details remain sketchy at this stage, information has been trickling in since 10 pm last evening that at least one person, probably one of the security guards outside the venue, may have died of his injuries while several others were rushed by emergency services, foremost the St. Johns Ambulance Services and the Kenya Red Cross, to various hospitals for treatment.
Added information sent in speaks of two or three men, driving up to the Bella Vista parking, were seen arguing with the guard at the security checkpoint where they apparently tried to sneak through, but when stopped for the now mandatory checks in place at literally all public places and venues, a struggle ensued before shots were fired and an explosion heard.
Said a regular coast tourism source: If it is true the guard died while trying to stop them from getting inside he is a hero in my book before continuing This is of course bad for coast tourism but I also must say that the security measures which were put in place are working, although there is not much one can do in a situation like this but to keep those with bad intentions as far away from the intended venue as possible.
Other sources have sent in details that at least one fire arm was recovered by security personnel which arrived at the scene as soon as the alarm was raised, but in view of the ongoing situation and considering that only 4 hours have passed since the incident, no further information has been forthcoming from any other regular and reliable sources in Mombasa.
The incident comes on the same day as the coast tourism industry has expressed their concerns over forward bookings to government, blaming a softening market on the continued uncertainty over the elections dates, which is for anyones guess at present, either late this year or as late as March 2013, going by previous announcements made in Nairobi by leading politicians. We urge government to end this uncertainty over the polling dates and make a final announcement, so that at least until then business can continue without tour operators starting to pull back from the earliest possible date in August to December to March next year. It is not a responsible way of doing things and besides, government ows it to us citizens to set an election date and then we can get on with things the same source who provided the initial tip off on the evenings event said.
This correspondent is set to visit the coast from next week onwards on a long planned fact finding mission, which will go ahead nevertheless, to both express support to tourism businesses in Mombasa and also for not ever letting terror get in the way of life as it should be. Watch this space.