East African carrier, Rwand Air, has disclosed plans to begin flight services connecting Lagos and its hub in Kigali into Far Eastern routes including Mumbai in India and Guangzhou, China.

Country Manager, Ibiyemi Odusi, said plans had been concluded to deploy a bigger aircraft on the route to give passengers value for their money.Odusi said that from their market research, it was discovered that Nigeria has a need for more carriers into the Far Eastern routes, and "as a strong player on our current routes, we thought there is a great need to satisfy our passengers, particularly in Nigeria."

She said by September and December this year, Rwand Air would be taking delivery of two Airbus A330s, with a flat bed in business class, free onboard Wi-fi, Mobile Network, World-Class In-flight Entertainment to serve these new routes. "As an airline, we feel the need to empathise with our customers by giving them quality aircraft as travel time increases on routes."

The Country Manager said the airline has pursued an ambitious fleet growth programme with eight aircraft in service in the four years of its existence. This is due to increase to 10 before the end of the year.

Odusi promised that the carrier would offer Nigerian passengers generous baggage allowance on the new routes, given the bigger aircraft that will avail enough space for their baggage, in addition to offering competitive fares to attract passengers interested in medical tourism in India.

She hinted on other plans to expend flights into more African destinations, including Khartoun in Sudan, Abidjan, Cote D'Ivoire, Cotonou Benin Republic and other African cities.

The implementation of single skies for Africa, she said, would deepen the air transport market in the continent, coupled with the removal of all restrictions concerning all agreements among African countries enabling African carriers to spread their tentacles to all parts of the continent.

She said if the single airspace policy for Africa were accelerated, the challenge of intra-African connections, which has affected many passengers would be eliminated as carriers could easily fly into different countries.