ASKY Eyes Southern Africa

According to centreforaviation, ASKY Airlines is turning its attention to expanding south, in search of more lucrative routes from its home base in Lome, Togo, to the likes of Angola and South Africa.
ASKY Airlines is 40% owned by Ethiopian Airlines and operates to 22 destinations, with Bissau to be added from July. ASKY is not currently connected to Southern Africa, but neighbouring hub Accra offers services to Windhoek and Johannesburg.
Lagos in Nigeria has connections to Johannesburg and Luanda. Bissau will initially be served twice weekly via two routes: Lome-Abidjan-Conakry-Bissau and Lome-Bamako-Dakar-Bissau. Overall frequencies between Lome and Bissau are expected to increase to five times weekly by January.
ASKY CEO Busera Awel has reportedly stated that services to Europe could commence in 2014 or 2015. This would most likely initially be to Paris, in light of to the country’s historic ties to France.
The codeshare arrangement between ASKY and Ethiopian will be extended to Ethiopian’s three times weekly Addis Ababa-Lome-Rio De Janeiro-Sao Paulo-Lome-Addis Ababa service, now planned to commence 1 July, after being delayed by a month.

RwandAir to Add New Destinations

 According to eturbonews.com, RwandAir plans to introduce Accra, Ghana to its network by June, which would make it the airline's 15th destination. The move to add another West African gateway to Lagos, Libreville, and Brazzaville shows that Rwanda’s national airline is serious about its expansion plans. RwandAir’s CEO John Mirenge is also on record as saying that more destinations, including Juba, Zanzibar, and either Lusaka or Harare, will be launched later this year. The ambitious growth plans will be further aided when in April this year the airline’s two B737-500 will be returned to the lessors GECAS at the end of the lease agreement and be substituted by two more recently built B737-700ERs, acquired from Germany’s TUIfly. The change will extend the operational range, as the two older Boeings faced limitations on the longer routes, such as Dubai, Johannesburg and Lagos, while the much younger B737-700s can fly these routes with full passenger and cargo load.