Uganda Airlines readies for intercontinental debut

Uganda Airlines (UR, Entebbe/Kampala) has secured landing slots at London Heathrow and Dubai Int’l and plans to start intercontinental flights to Europe, Asia, and the Middle-East once its two A330-800Ns have been added to its Air Operator’s Certificate (AOC). 5X-CRN (msn 1979) and 5X-NIL (msn 1977) were delivered from Airbus (AIB, Toulouse Blagnac) in December 2020 and January 2021 respectively and are currently undergoing certification with the Uganda Civil Aviation Authority (UCAA) before they can be deployed into service. Meanwhile, the process of obtaining traffic rights, foreign air operator permits, and landing approvals, in the target destinations is progressing well, the airline said. According to Ugandan news reports, the A330-800s will start London Heathrow flights on March 28, 2021, with Dubai, Guangzhou, and Mumbai Int’l to follow. The airline also owns four CRJ900LRs, which it uses on regional routes from Entebbe/Kampala, currently including Bujumbura, Burundi; Dar es Salaam, Kilimanjaro, and Zanzibar in Tanzania; Juba in South Sudan; Kinshasa N’Djili in the DRC; Mogadishu in Somalia; and Mombasa and Nairobi Jomo Kenyatta in Kenya. As previously reported, the carrier has plans to expand its African international network to Johannesburg O.R. Tambo, Lusaka, Harare Int’l, Khartoum, Addis Ababa, Lagos, Accra, Goma, and Lubumbashi. Implementation of the new flag carrier’s route network has been delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic with the country having been in lockdown between March and October 1, 2020. Wholly-owned and financed by the Ugandan government, the revival of the national carrier in January 2018 was a flagship project under Uganda’s Second National Development Plan (NDP II) that aims to strengthen the country’s middle-income status.