RwandAir and its holding company, Aviation Travel and Logistics (ATL), have confirmed that negotiations for Qatar to acquire a 49% stake in the Rwandan carrier should be finalised within a few months.
Talks first began in February 2020, but have progresses slowly, explained Jules Ndenga, CEO of ATL, speaking to timesaerospace.aero during the African Airline Association’s 13th Aviation Stakeholders’ Convention in Kigali.
“We had some delays, mainly in the recent past, due to the shift from Qatar Airways to the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA),” said Ndenga.
Originally, Qatar Airways had been leading the investment initiative, but it has been transferred to QIA, the sovereign wealth fund of Qatar. Ndenga explained that the switch had necessitated a full review of the investment agreement, which has now been completed.
QIA has also taken a 60% stake in development of the new Kigali International Airport which is expected to become a major regional hub when it opens in 2028.
“We are already working together, and we continue to grow our codeshare partnership which is at 80-plus destinations, and we co-operate on a few other areas,” said Yvonne Manzi Makolo, RwandAir CEO.
Makolo told delegates that African carriers faced challenges with upscaling due to their high-cost environment. She explained that RwandAir would be utilising its ongoing partnership with Qatar to transform the airline by identifying gaps in its operations.
“We are going through a whole transformation exercise as well to streamline RwandAir,” she explained. “This is looking at our business, all of our departments, asking whether we are the right size, whether we have the right people in the right jobs, looking at our network and our fleet.”
Makolo also expressed ambitions to double the carrier’s fleet in the next five years.
