Royal Jordanian continues to expand its network in the United States, with a new route to Washington DC as of March 23rd, 2025. The airline will operate two times weekly from Amman, Jordan’s capital, by Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner aircraft configured for 270 passengers in two classes (24 Business and 246 Economy).

IAD will become Royal Jordanian’s sixth destination in North America, following Chicago, Detroit, Montreal, New York JFK and Toronto, all of which are performed from/to AMM.

Tuesday and Sunday

• RJ 282  Amman AMM 11:25 · 17:45 IAD Washington DC
• RJ 283  Washington DC IAD 20:50 · 15:30+1 AMM Amman

In addition to the United States and Canada, Royal Jordanian operates to Abu Dhabi, Algiers, Al Ula, Amsterdam, Aqaba, Athens, Baghdad, Bahrain, Bangkok, Barcelona, Basra, Beirut, Berlin, Brussels, Cairo, Dammam, Doha, Dubai DWC, Dubai DXB, Düsseldorf, Erbil, Frankfurt, Geneva, Istanbul IST, Jeddah, Karachi, Kuwait City, Larnaca, London LHR, London STN, Lyon, Maastricht, Madrid, Manchester, Medina, Milan MXP, Moscow DME, Paris CDG, Riyadh, Rome, Sharm el-Sheikh, Sulaimaniyah, Tripoli, Tunis and Zurich.

Routes to Canada and the United States

• Chicago (ORD): 5 weekly · Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner
• Detroit (DTW): 3 weekly · Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner
• Montreal (YUL): 2 weekly · Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner
• New York (JFK): 2 weekly · Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner
• Toronto (YYZ) via YUL: 2 weekly · Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner

New airline in Africa

Air Congo, an Ethiopian Airlines joint venture with the Democratic Republic of the Congo, will commence services in the country. These flights to/from Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, will be operated by two Boeing 737-800s of Ethiopian Airlines effective December 1st.

According to the current schedule, Goma, Kalemie, Kisangani, Kolwezi, Lubumbashi and Mbuji-Mayi will be its destinations, offered three to seven times a week. Air Congo plans to expand its fleet to six aircraft over the next year, as well as increase its route network.

Ethiopian Airlines will hold a 49% stake in Air Congo, while the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo will hold the remaining 51%. In addition to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Air Congo will have an agreement with South Sudan, with the aim of increasing connectivity between the two countries.

Kinshasa FIH

• Goma (GOM): 7 weekly · December 1st
• KIH – Lubumbashi (FBM) – Kolwezi (KWZ) – FIH: 4 weekly · December 1st
• KIH – Kalemie (FMI) – Lubumbashi (FBM) – FIH: 4 weekly · December 1st
• Kisangani (FKI): 7 weekly · December 1st
• KIH – Lubumbashi (FBM) – Kalemie (FMI) – FIH: 3 weekly · December 3rd
• KIH – Lubumbashi (FBM) – Mbuji-Mayi (MJM) – FIH: 3 weekly · December 3rd

Air France started operations to Kilimanjaro

At 01:29 local time on November 19th, Air France’s inaugural flight from Paris Charles de Gaulle landed in Kilimanjaro. The airline will operate a triangular route with Zanzibar, on 324-passenger Airbus A350-900 planes.

Air France resumed services to Kilimanjaro after almost 30 years of suspension. The last flight had been in 1996.

Monday, Wednesday and Saturday

• AF 877  Paris CDG 10:10 · 21:10 ZNZ Zanzibar
• AF 877  Zanzibar ZNZ 22:55 · 23:55 JRO Kilimanjaro
• AF 877  Kilimanjaro JRO 01:25 · 08:50 CDG Paris (Tue/Thu/Sun)

Following the launch of Kilimanjaro, the company reached 34 airports with operations in Africa.

In accordance with our database, from Paris (CDG or ORY), Air France has flights to Abidjan, Abuja, Algiers, Antananarivo, Bangui, Brazzaville, Cairo, Cape Town, Casablanca, Conakry, Cotonou, Dakar, Djibouti, Douala, Johannesburg, Kilimanjaro, Kinshasa, Lagos, Libreville, Lome, Luanda, Malabo, Marrakech, Nairobi, N’Djamena, Nouakchott, Oran, Pointe Noire, Port Louis, Rabat, Saint-Denis, Tunis, Yaounde and Zanzibar.

The first Airbus A350-1000 in Africa

On November 5th at 14:36 local time, Africa’s first Airbus A350-1000 arrived in Addis Ababa. The aircraft with registration ET-BAW, owned by Ethiopian Airlines, was delivered brand new from Toulouse-Blagnac.

Ethiopian Airlines reaches 21 Airbus A350s in its fleet, of which 20 are A350-900s. At the time of publication, the carrier has 14 A350s on order (11 Airbus A350-900s and the remaining three Airbus A350-1000s).

The A350-1000s will be configured for 395 passengers in two classes, which will have the largest business class in the airline’s fleet. In addition, Ethiopian Airlines will introduce Airbus’ new HBCplus satcom connectivity solution, offering seamless, high-speed gate-to-gate connectivity.

Ethiopian has 134 aircraft, averaging nine years of age.

Fleet

• Airbus A350-900: 20
• Airbus A350-1000: 1
• Boeing 737-700: 2
• Boeing 737-800: 12
• Boeing 737 MAX 8: 17
• Boeing 767-300(ER): 3
• Boeing 777-200(ER): 6
• Boeing 777-300(ER): 4
• Boeing 777(F): 10
• Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner: 19
• Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner: 10
• DHC-8-400: 30

We review other highlights of the Africa and Middle East market

Air Arabia Abu Dhabi

Starting December 27th, Air Arabia Abu Dhabi will add a new connection to Russia from the United Arab Emirates. The airline will serve between Abu Dhabi and Yekaterinburg on 174-seat Airbus A320-200s, twice per week.

Tuesday and Friday

• 3L 756  Abu Dhabi AUH 02:45 · 08:50 SVX Yekaterinburg
• 3L 757  Yekaterinburg SVX 09:50 · 14:10 AUH Abu Dhabi

Air Arabia Abu Dhabi will be the only operator on this route.

Air India

The carrier expanded its Airbus A320neo flights in the Middle East, introducing these aircraft on routes to Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Kuwait City and Muscat.

• Bengaluru (BLR) – Abu Dhabi (AUH): 4 weekly · October 27th
• Delhi (DEL) – Bahrain (BAH): 4 weekly · October 27th
• Delhi (DEL) – Muscat (MCT): 3 weekly · October 27th
• Kozhikode (CCJ) – Kuwait City (KWI): 5 weekly · October 27th
• Kozhikode (CCJ) – Muscat (MCT): 7 weekly · October 27th

Air Tanzania

Air Tanzania’s inaugural service to Johannesburg will depart Dar-es-Salaam at 11:00 local time on November 30th.

Daily except Tuesday and Thursday

• TC 208  Dar-es-Salaam DAR 11:00 · 13:15 JNB Johannesburg
• TC 209  Johannesburg JNB 14:51 · 18:30 DAR Dar-es-Salaam

For more information about this new route, you can read this post.

Airlink

The South African airline will open a new route from Cape Town as of April 1st, 2025.

Gaborone, capital of Botswana, will be served by Airlink with Embraer 145 aircraft configured for 44 passengers.

Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday

• 4Z 364  Cape Town CPT 10:50 · 13:00 GBE Gaborone
• 4Z 365  Gaborone GBE 13:45 · 16:00 CPT Cape Town

Currently, Air Botswana has four flights a week on this route by Embraer 170s.

Emirates

Many new developments from Emirates, including new routes and frequency increases, all to/from Dubai.

• Rio de Janeiro (GIG) – Buenos Aires (EZE): switched from 777-200LR to 777-300ER · October 26th
• Adelaide (ADL): route resumption · 7 weekly · October 28th
• Rio de Janeiro (GIG) – Buenos Aires (EZE): increased from 4 to 5 weekly · November 2nd
• Edinburgh (EDI): route resumption · 7 weekly · November 4th
• Victoria (SEZ) – Antananarivo (TNR): increases from 4 to 5 weekly · December 13th
• Addis Ababa (ADD): increases from 6 to 7 weekly · January 2nd, 2025
• Ho Chi Minh City (SGN): increases from 7 to 14 weekly · January 15th, 2025

Enter Air

Cape Verde – KTW, new market for the Polish carrier.

Enter Air began seasonal flights between Katowice-Pyrzowice and Espargos on November 4th. The first service arrived at Amílcar Cabral International Airport (Espargos) at 11:36 local time, following a flight of 7 hours and 6 minutes.

Monday

• E4 7605  Katowice KTW 07:25 · 13:00 SID Espargos
• E4 7606  Espargos SID 15:25 · 00:05+1 KTW Katowice

Regarding other destinations in Poland, Enter Air and Smartwings Poland operate to Espargos from Warsaw, one and two times weekly, respectively.

Etihad

El Dabaa (Egypt), Etihad Airways’ new destination.

The airline plans to launch operations from Abu Dhabi effective July 17th, 2025, with 158-seat Airbus A320-200 aircraft. Etihad will offer this schedule:

Thursday and Sunday

• EY 721  Abu Dhabi AUH 09:20 · 12:35 DBB El Dabaa
• EY 722  El Dabaa DBB 14:15 · 19:05 AUH Abu Dhabi

It will be Etihad Airways’ second destination in Egypt after Cairo, which serves 28 times per week from/to AUH on Airbus A320-200s, Airbus A320neo and Airbus A321neo.

Furthermore, Algiers, Atlanta, Chiang Mai, Hanoi, Hong Kong, Krabi, Medan, Phnom Penh, Taipei and Tunis will be 10 new Etihad destinations, starting in 2025. We will post an article about this announcement shortly.

flyadeal

At 08:18 local time on November 11th, flyadeal’s inaugural flight to Sohag departed Jeddah. The Saudi low cost carrier will provide two weekly operations to the Egyptian city using 186-seat Airbus A320neo planes.

JED – HMB

• F3 777  Jeddah JED 08:10 · 09:00 HMB Sohag (Monday)
• F3 777  Jeddah JED 08:55 · 09:45 HMB Sohag (Sunday)

HMB – JED

• F3 778  Sohag HMB 10:00 · 12:45 JED Jeddah (Monday)
• F3 778  Sohag HMB 10:45 · 13:30 JED Jeddah (Sunday)

flydubai

As of December 2nd, flydubai will double its services between Dubai and Addis Ababa. The company will boost from 7 to 14 flights a week to Ethiopia, which it operates with Boeing 737-800s and Boeing 737 MAX 8s.

Daily

• FZ 647  Dubai DXB 16:05 · 19:35 ADD Addis Ababa
• FZ 648  Addis Ababa ADD 20:45 · 02:10+1 DXB Dubai

Daily · new flight

• FZ 641  Dubai DXB 00:35 · 03:45 ADD Addis Ababa
• FZ 642  Addis Ababa ADD 04:45 · 09:55 DXB Dubai

Emirates (EK) and Ethiopian (ET) also have services on this route, offering more than three daily frequencies between them (14 weekly flights EK and 9 weekly flights ET).

flynas

Djibouti will enter flynas’ regular schedule from 2025.

According to its website, on January 8th, 2025, the Saudi airline will start flying three times per week between Jeddah and Djibouti on Airbus A320neo aircraft.

Wednesday, Friday and Sunday

• XY 615  Jeddah JED 04:45 · 07:00 JIB Djibouti
• XY 616  Djibouti JIB 07:50 · 10:15 JED Jeddah

flynas will be the only carrier with operations in the Saudi Arabia – Djibouti market.

As well as Djibouti, the company will commence services to Entebbe on January 12th, 2025, making flynas the only operator between Saudi Arabia and Uganda.

Wednesday, Friday and Sunday

• XY 345  Riyadh RUH 22:00 · 03:30+1 EBB Entebbe

Monday, Thursday and Saturday

• XY 346  Entebbe EBB 04:20 · 09:40 RUH Riyadh

Iran Air

The airline launched flights between Tehran and Dubai on November 15th.

Iran Air will operate this route by 120-seat Airbus A319-100 jets, with the following schedule:

Monday and Thursday

• IR 641  Dubai DXB 12:25 · 14:05 IKA Tehran
• IR 640  Tehran IKA 16:30 · 19:10 DXB Dubai

Israir

On November 17th at 09:44 local time, Israir’s inaugural service to London Luton departed Tel Aviv airport. The Israeli airline will perform six weekly flights on Boeing 737-800s leased from Smartwings, which are configured for 188 passengers.

Daily except Saturday

• 6H 117  Tel Aviv TLV 09:35 · 13:00 LTN London
• 6H 118  London LTN 13:50 · 20:50 TLV Tel Aviv

Israir reaches 31 scheduled routes to/from TLV with the launch of LTN.

KLM

More operations to Cape Town.

KLM Royal Dutch Airlines will increase from seven to nine flights a week from Amsterdam in December, reaching 10 from early January 2025. 

The carrier serves this route with Boeing 777-200(ER), Boeing 777-300(ER) and Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner (KL 597/598).

Schedule between AMS and CPT

• Currently: 7 weekly
• Eff December 17th: increases to 9 weekly (new flight KL 595/596)
• Eff January 9th, 2025: increases to 10 weekly

Flight KL 597/598 has a daily frequency.

Norse

Norse UK entered the African market with the new London Gatwick – Cape Town route, to be offered three times weekly on Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner with 338 seats in two classes.

Monday, Wednesday and Saturday

• Z0 795  London LGW 20:30 · 09:50+1 CPT Cape Town

Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday

• Z0 796  Cape Town CPT 11:45 · 21:20 LGW London

For more information, you can read this post.

Nouvelair Tunisie

On November 3rd at 17:13 local time, the carrier’s first flight for Rabat took off from Tunis. Nouvelair Tunisie will operate three services per week using Airbus A320-200s configured for 180 passengers.

TUN – RBA

• BJ 170  Tunis TUN 16:55 · 19:35 RBA Rabat (Wednesday)
• BJ 170  Tunis TUN 17:20 · 20:00 RBA Rabat (Friday)
• BJ 170  Tunis TUN 16:55 · 19:35 RBA Rabat (Sunday)

RBA – TUN

• BJ 171  Rabat RBA 20:20 · 22:50 TUN Tunis (Wednesday)
• BJ 171  Rabat RBA 21:00 · 23:30 TUN Tunis (Friday)
• BJ 171  Rabat RBA 20:35 · 23:05 TUN Tunis (Sunday)

Rabat reaches four destinations in Africa with the start of Tunis, joining Agadir, El Aaiun and Errachidia. The other routes are to Europe.

Oman Air

The airline files a tentative schedule between Muscat and Athens, planned to commence on September 1st, 2025. These flights are not for sale, as this is a tentative schedule:

Daily

• WY 191  Muscat MCT 13:35 · 18:00 ATH Athens
• WY 192  Athens ATH 19:00 · 00:55+1 MCT Muscat

Oman Air will resume flights to Athens after almost six years, if launched.

Renegade Air

New Dash 8 for the Kenyan company.

At the end of October, Renegade Air added another De Havilland Canada DHC-8-100 Dash 8, reaching three aircraft of this type in its fleet. The 30-year-old plane, acquired through a leasing agreement with Avmax, has the registration 5Y-RNH.

Renegade Air has a diversified fleet, with ATR, CRJ, Dash and Fokker aircraft.

Fleet

• ATR 72-500: 1
• CRJ-100: 1
• DHC-8-100: 3
• DHC-8-300: 3
• Fokker 50: 3
• Fokker 70: 1

Royal Jordanian

In addition to Washington DC, Royal Jordanian began operations to Moscow Domodedovo and Tripoli Mitiga in October. The company will fly Airbus A320s and Embraer E190-E2s.

• Moscow (DME): 2 weekly · October 15th · Airbus A320-200
• Tripoli (MJI): 3 weekly · October 28th · A320/E190-E2

SalamAir

The Oman airline will add two new routes to Africa from January 2025, both from Muscat. SalamAir will operate by Airbus A320neo and Airbus A321neo aircraft with 180 and 212 seats, respectively.

Nairobi · eff January 15th, 2025

Monday and Wednesday

• OV 365  Muscat MCT 10:00 · 14:00 NBO Nairobi
• OV 366  Nairobi NBO 14:45 · 20:45 MCT Muscat

Mogadishu · eff January 17th, 2025

MCT – MGQ

• OV 343  Muscat MCT 10:05 · 13:15 MGQ Mogadishu (Tuesday)
• OV 341  Muscat MCT 03:00 · 06:10 MGQ Mogadishu (Friday)

MGQ – MCT

• OV 344  Mogadishu MGQ 14:00 · 19:05 MCT Muscat (Tuesday)
• OV 342  Mogadishu MGQ 06:55 · 12:00 MCT Muscat (Friday)

Saudia

Saudi Arabian Airlines recently signed a codeshare agreement with Aerolíneas Argentinas, with the aim of expanding connectivity between Saudi Arabia and Argentina.

The flights included in this agreement will be Aerolíneas Argentinas services to Madrid and Rome from Buenos Aires, and from Europe to Riyadh and Jeddah by the Saudi airline.

Aerolíneas Argentinas operated by Saudia

• Madrid (MAD) – Jeddah (JED)
• Rome (FCO) – Jeddah (JED)
• Rome (FCO) – Riyadh (RUH)

Saudia operated by Aerolíneas Argentinas

• Buenos Aires (EZE) – Madrid (MAD)
• Buenos Aires (EZE) – Rome (FCO)

Somon Air

Two flights between Dushanbe and Doha.

The Tajik carrier schedules to operate services on November 28th and December 5th, in both cases with 189-seat Boeing 737-800 planes.

Wednesday

• SZ 139  Dushanbe DYU 09:00 · 10:50 DOH Doha
• SZ 140  Doha DOH 12:20 · 17:40 DYU Dushanbe

South African

South African Airways has confirmed many updates on part of its international routes, with new services and frequency increases.

The announcement includes Accra, Dar-es-Salaam, Harare, Kinshasa, Lagos, Lubumbashi, Lusaka, Male and Perth, from/to Johannesburg:

• Accra (ACC): 1 weekly · November 3rd · new non-stop service · A330
• Lusaka (LUN): increases from 7 to 12 weekly · November 3rd · A320
• Harare (HRE): increases from 10 to 12 weekly · November 4th · A320
• Lubumbashi (FBM): 5 weekly · November 5th · Airbus A320
• Kinshasa (FIH): increases from 3 to 4 weekly · November 5th · A320
• Lagos (LOS): increases from 3 to 4 weekly · November 7th · A340
• Male (MLE): increases from 7 to 14 weekly · December 1st · Boeing 737
• Perth (PER): increases from 3 to 4 weekly · December 7th · A340
• Perth (PER): increases from 4 to 5 weekly · January 6th, 2025 · A340
• Dar-es-Salaam (DAR): 7 weekly · January 20th, 2025 · Airbus A320

TAAG

TAAG Linhas Aéreas de Angola began regular flights with its first Airbus A220.

As we commented in our last Africa and Middle East report, Angola’s state-owned airline took delivery of the new A220 registered D2-TAA. The aircraft arrived from Montreal via Dublin and Faro on September 30th.

Following two test flights during October, the first scheduled service departed Luanda on November 8th at 11:42 local time, covering flight DT 510 to São Tomé (São Tomé and Principe). Since then, Catumbela (Angola), Maputo (Mozambique) and Windhoek (Namibia) were its other routes.

First flight with A220

• São Tomé (TMS): November 8th · DT 510/511
• Catumbela (CBT): November 8th · DT 443/444
• Windhoek (WDH): November 14th · DT 573/574
• Maputo (MPM): November 19th · DT 581/582

World2Fly

The Spanish company will have charter flights between Madrid and Malabo starting December 19th, which will be operated with 388-seat Airbus A330-300 airplanes.

These services will run through winter 2024/25, with the last one scheduled for late April 2025.

Thursday

• 2W 9725  Madrid MAD 12:40 · 18:20 SSG Malabo
• 2W 9726  Malabo SSG 20:20 · 02:05+1 MAD Madrid

Currently, Plus Ultra, another Spanish airline, operates a weekly flight on this route by Airbus A330s.

New aircraft added by airlines from Africa and the Middle East

• Air Cairo (x2)

• Emirates

• Emirates SkyCargo

• Ethiopian Airlines

• flyadeal

• Saudia

Emirates has taken delivery of its first Airbus A350-900

On November 26th at 03:17 local time, Emirates’ Airbus A350, with registry A6-EXA, arrived at Dubai International Airport from Toulouse after a ferry flight of 7 hours and 17 minutes.

This A350 becomes the first of an order for 65 Airbus A350-900s, which will join the airline over the course of the next few years. In addition, the delivery marks the entry of a new aircraft type to Emirates following 16 years, when it added its first Airbus A380 in 2008.

Emirates will begin regular Airbus A350 flights effective January 3rd, 2025, with the Dubai – Edinburgh route.

Fleet

• Airbus A350-900: 1
• Airbus A380-800: 116
• Boeing 777-200(LR): 10
• Boeing 777-300(ER): 120
• Boeing 777-F: 11

Other reports we have published

• United States and Canada
• Latin America
• Europe
• Asia and Oceania

Cover photo: George Shatsman – JetPhotos (Amman Queen Alia Int’l – OJAI, Jordan)