While the timeline remains to be seen, it looks like the oneworld alliance could pick up a second member airline in Africa.
Continue reading: RwandAir Wants To Join Oneworld Alliance
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
Qatar Airways and Rwandair are a perfect match,
Two airlines from semi-autocratic states that operate for the primary purpose of boosting the national image rather than for commercial reasons.
However, Rwanda squanders around 5% of its annual national budget (equivalent to between 10-15% of foreign aid to Rwanda) on subsidies for their loss making airline while Qatar has infinitely more cash to spare.
Rwandair remains an ego driven vanity project with a basket case for a business case.
Looking at RwandAir's route map, questions abound. Key question #1 is: Compared to destinations served by existing oneworld member airlines, what destinations would RwandAir add? Key question #2 is: Among the destinations served by existing oneworld member airlines, would RwandAir provide easier routing? Ultimately, who is the target passenger? It seems too much of a niche market and the cards would suggest oneworld Connect membership.
I for one an very happy to hear about this development. OneWorld has such an opportunity with it's new Chairman to grow in many places. This will add destinations in East/West and Central Africa and improve RwandAir in many areas. Africa have TRIPLE it current population by 2050 and many of the world's largest cities will soon be there. Any opportunity to earn and burn I'm happy about.
"RwandAir joining oneworld would be awesome"
"Awesome." Really? This big news qualifies for "awesome" in your book?
You are either too-easily awed, you're lazy and your writing is just on autopilot, or you don't care about having any credibility. Perhaps more than one of these things could be true?
If RwandAir named you CEO, would you join?
Spending (wasting) 5% of the national budget every year seems like a cool job. That's like $300 billion in the USA.
Having lived in Rwanda for several years, "semi" is being generous here. Rwanda is an interesting case in terms of global development and organization, but Rwandair just seems like a total boondoggle, like most national airlines in this region. With all the progress made, it remains a very poor country that has no real need for any domestic flights and is reasonably well connected to tourist markets via Turkish, Ethiopian, Qatar, KLM, etc. This is not an "awesome" development as that aid budget has a lot more higher value uses IMO.
Rwanda's spend on Rwandair and its advertising itself to tourists on English football jerseys is a good investment. Tourism has doubled in ten years and spend has tripled. Since Rwanda is positioning itself as a financial services hub (exports of goods from landlocked countries have serious limitations, much more so in Central Africa), the ability for easy access is essential, one that will be helped by an airline. Given the poor standards of airlines in the region, and Rwanda's relatively high standards in everything as compared to those of other countries in the region, Rwandair is easily competitive.
More specifically, the country's reputation for efficiency and its location has attracted Qatar as a partner in the new, modern Bugesera Airport that is under construction. It seems that its investments are producing results, including consistently strong economic growth. The source is cited below.
"Growth averaged 7.2% a year over the decade to 2019, while per capita gross domestic product (GDP) grew at 5%."
https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/rwanda/overview