Fastjet Zimbabwe has launched its inaugural flight from Zimbabwe’s tourism capital Victoria Falls to Maun in Botswana. The new service route will operate four times a week Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday on an Embraer ER145 aircraft.
This follows another launch in March of a direct flight between Victoria Falls and Mpumalanga, in South Africa.
The new flight arrangement will provide the much-needed scheduled connectivity between Victoria Falls and Maun allowing visitors ease of travel when exploring the region’s top attractions. Said Nunurai Ndawana, fastjet Zimbabwe spokesperson:
We are thrilled to launch a scheduled service to Maun in Botswana from our evergrowing Victoria Falls tourism hub. We continue to strengthen Victoria Falls as a regional tourism hub and the introduction of this new flight service four times a week will connect two of Southern Africa’s most sought-after destinations, the Victoria Falls and the Okavango Delta with a reliable scheduled air service.
Fastjet Zimbabwe’s chief commercial officer, Vivian Ruwuya comments added that Victoria Falls remained one of the airline’s strategic destinations and this route adds to fastjet’s international presence in the region. Ruwuya added:
To ensure the sustainable development of this route, we are going to adjust our size and operate the Maun flights using a dual fleet model of our Embraer ERJ145 aircraft and our partner’s Cessna Grand Caravan 208B. Both aircraft are known for their ability to provide the versatility to build a sustainable regional network with their right-size capacity.
Botswana Civil Aviation Authority chief executive officer Bao Mosinyi said the development comes when travel had gone down through the world. Mosinyi added:
The 96% drop was the general activity throughout the country. Three of the airlines that we had flying into the country are not coming back to the country. We needed a boost with international airlines starting to come in, and today we got the boost of what we needed.
Mosinyi added that fastjet’s initiative will help boost tourism in all countries.