Arusha airport set to reopen

The current repairs on Tanzania’s Arusha Municipal Airport runway are nearing the end, it was learned, when discussing the forthcoming Karibu Tourism and Travel Fair starting this weekend in East Africa’s Safari Capital.

“From what we have been told, they expect to finish the work by mid-July, and even Precision Air will start flights again. We have all been complaining that for every flight, we must go to Kilimanjaro, which is too far away, and now we can have the safari flights and even domestic flights use Arusha again. We only hope that those guys at Kilimanjaro are not crying again about losing revenue, but really, the convenience of our clients should be the most important issue here. If we can fly to and from Arusha, the cost of air safaris will be reduced by the cost of the long transfer to Kilimanjaro and the loss of time, which we had so far,” said the regular source from Arusha when talking to this correspondent yesterday.

In a follow up, it was also confirmed that Precision Air indeed plans to restore flights into Arusha using ATR 42 and ATR 72 aircraft for domestic services, which is thought to increase their traffic share and support from the local business community in and around Arusha, which hitherto had to drive 50+ kilometers to JRO to catch a flight. The same source at Precision, on condition of anonymity, also reconfirmed that their planned flights to Lusaka and Lubumbashi/Congo DR will commence on June 22 and will operate three times a week using a B737-300 aircraft.

ETN
06 June 2012