Coastal Aviation has advised passengers intending to book on their flights to Kigali, that effective 01st of December onwards ticket prices must be revised upwards.
This appears to be the result of a whopping 233 percent increase in flight clearance charges by the Rwandan authorities, which is reminiscent of their doubling of gorilla permit prices some time ago.
Clearly oblivious to the impact of such decisions have Tanzanian tourism sources already expressed their concern that this latest increase may impact on their ability to sell seats on this route, more so given that in Kenya a similar package is available with Air Kenya through the Masai Mara to Entebbe and from their to Bwindi with sister airline Aerolink.
‘We are already struggling a bit with these high tariffs and this latest increase in fares will only make the challenge even harder. We are competing on a tilted level with Kenya and Uganda which also offers flights from the Masai Mara via Kisumu to Entebbe and from there to Bwindi.
The packages are much more affordable because the gorilla tracking permits are so much less in Uganda. Anyway, we shall see how this will impact us but for now we are not very hopeful‘ said one regular source in Arusha to ATCNews.
Source: ATNews