Low-cost airline expands its pan-African network with daily direct international flights from Dar es Salaam and Kilimanjaro to Nairobi, and daily domestic flights from Dar es Salaam to Zanzibar.
fastjet’s inaugural flights from Dar es Salaam to Nairobi, Kilimanjaro to Nairobi, and Dar es Salaam to Zanzibar all took off on Monday 11 January 2016, marking an important milestone in fastjet’s international and domestic route expansion.
The daily return flights to Zanzibar are expected to make it easier for more Tanzanian and international visitors to travel to Zanzibar, boosting tourism and business and contributing significantly to the Spice Islands’ economic growth.
The launch of fastjet flights to Nairobi from two of Tanzania’s busiest airports kick-starts a new era of choice for passengers who have suffered prohibitively high fares on flights between two of Africa’s fastest growing economies.
The impact of fastjet flights into Kenya has already been considerable, demonstrated by the fact that fares with competing airlines flying between the two countries suddenly dropped by as much as 40% on the day that fastjet announced that it would commence flights between Kenya and Tanzania.
“The fact is that competition is good for consumers. It brings choice and it brings air fares down,” says Jimmy Kibati, fastjet General Manager for East Africa.
fastjet expects to add more flights to its new Kenyan routes as consumer demand increases and it has already indicated that it expects to launch flights between Zanzibar and Nairobi as well as Dar es Salaam and Mombasa later in 2016.
“As has been the case with other routes that fastjet has launched, we expect many of our passengers on our new Kenya flights to be first time flyers who would otherwise not have been able to afford to travel by air”, noted Kibati.
Supporting this expectation is research undertaken by fastjet, showing that more than one third of its passengers were first time flyers able to afford air travel for the first time.
“Affordable air travel is key to the growth of economies across Africa because of the positive impact that low-cost air travel can have on the lives of their citizens and the general economy,” says Kibati.
“We are very grateful to the transportation ministries and the civil aviation authorities in both Kenya and Tanzania for working together to make it possible for fastjet to realise our vision of growing the number of consumers who can access the convenience of affordable air travel,” concluded Kibati.