Ahead of the delivery, expected by the middle of the year, of their own B737-800, RwandaAir has signed a temporary dry lease agreement with a South African aviation firm to use the aircraft for the period of the FIFA World Cup when traffic is expected to peak between Kigali and Johannesburg.

The national airline of Rwanda has already launched affordable packages to travel to South Africa, available from across their Eastern African network, and the use of a larger aircraft – the airline presently operates two CRJ200 jets – will assist them to uplift the projected passenger numbers during the run up to and the duration of the world’s biggest sporting event besides the Olympics.

Alongside the delivery of the B737-800, a wide-bodied aircraft will join their fleet, likely to be a B767, which will be deployed on flight to new medium and long-haul destinations, adding further scope to the operation of RwandAir and making the airline a more attractive proposition for the planned privatization.