LONDON – French flag carrier Air France continues their increase in services to East African destinations in preparation for the Summer 2023 season.
The route increase
In an official statement by Air France, details of the first new routes of its schedule for Summer 2023, starting in April and ending in October were revealed.
The first new routes see an increased service to East Africa in particular, and as of June 12, Air France will also inaugurate a new route from Paris Charles de Gaulle airport (CDG) to Dar Es Salam, Tanzania, which will act as a continuation of the service to Zanzibar.
The new service is set to be operated by Air France’s Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft, on a thrice weekly schedule.
With this new route, the carrier will also increase their flights to Zanzibar (Tanzania), Nairobi (Kenya) and Antanarivo (Madagascar).
The schedules
The new service to Dar Es Salam is set to depart Paris CDG airport at 10.20 in the morning, local time on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays, as AF876.
With the scheduled landing in Zanzibar at 8.15 in the evening, the flight will thereafter depart for Dar Es Salam 1,5-hour later at 9.45 in the evening, eventually landing at Dar Es Salam at 10.20 in the evening the same day.
As for the returning flight, it will return on the same flight number, with a scheduled departure from Dar Es Salam at 11.50pm on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays, landing back at Paris Charles de Gaulle (CDG) at 07.55 in the morning the following day.
The new service will also notably spike up the frequency of the Paris – Zanzibar route.
Another route seeing a great increase is Air France’s service between Paris and Antananarivo, Madagascar. Air France will offer a denser flight schedule with five non-stop weekly flights, making an increase of one more flight per week.
Flights to and from Madagascar will be operated for the first time by an Airbus A350-900, which Air France has really seen as the new jewel in their long haul operations.
Latest A350 delivery
In recent news, Air France took delivery of their 20th Airbus A350-900 aircraft at Airbus’ manufacturing facility in Toulouse. The aircraft itself is leased from lessor Avalon.
Their latest Airbus A350, registered as F-HTYT is Air France’s fifth aircraft on lease from Avolon, with the other four being F-HTYN, F-HTYM, F-HTYG, F-HTYJ all of which are Airbus A350-900 aircraft.
According to data from RadarBox, F-HTYT departed Toulouse Blagnac Airport (TLS) November 25th at 15:06 pm local time and arrived into Paris Charles De Gaulle Airport (CDG) at 16:14 pm local time after a flight time of one hour and eight minutes (01h 08m) as AFR375V.
You can read more about this here.
Conclusion
Seeing as the Covid-19 pandemic so to say being over, the new route along with an increase could without doubt been after great customer request.
Although the amount of travellers requesting and planning for travel on this route remains unknown, hope is there for a great passenger load factor once the new service initiates.
This is also the case for the increased frequencies on some flights, where Air France can hope for great numbers.
