Uganda Airlines plans direct flights to Delhi and Chennai
New Delhi: In a bid to strengthen direct connectivity between India and Uganda, the state carrier Uganda Airlines plans to offer direct flights to Delhi and Chennai. The move aims at tapping the demand potential across the Indian community with trade links in Uganda along with leisure traffic, a senior executive at the airline told Mint in an interaction. The airline will launch its first direct flight with the Indian market on 7 Oct with a direct flight between Mumbai and Entebbe.
Under the schedule, Uganda Airlines plans to offer direct flights thrice a week with Airbus A330-800 aircraft. The wide-body aircraft will offer a three-class configuration with 210 economy, 28 premium economy and 20 business class seats. The direct flight will reduce the travel time to five and a half hours from nearly 10 hours earlier as a result of one-stop connectivity.
“India is a critical market for us. We are looking at operating to Delhi and Chennai going forward as these two are in high demand in the outbound air traffic from the African market," Lenny Malasi, country manager, Uganda Airlines. Given the demand potential from the two metro cities, the airline may launch three flights a week from Delhi and two flights a week from Chennai to Entebbe going forward.
Uganda Airlines currently operates flights to Dubai, Johannesburg, Bujumbura, Nairobi, Mombasa, Zanzibar, Dar es Salaam, Kilimanjaro, Juba, Kinshasa and Mogadishu. Flights to Lagos, Nigeria, are scheduled to start shortly. “There is a big community of Indians in East Africa with over 45,000 third-generation Indians in Uganda itself.
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