Kenya Airways launches flights to Victoria Falls

KENYA Airways begins three weekly flights to Victoria Falls on Monday in another vote of confidence for the airport after undertaking a $150 million upgrade.

The airline will fly on Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays.

In a posting on its Facebook page, the carrier said: "From May 1, we will have direct flights to Victoria Falls. This is our second destination in the country of Zimbabwe. Talk about expanding our reach!"

The Victoria Falls route will be linked to Cape Town. The Kenya Airways debut flight was supposed to be on May 18.

It will be Kenya Airways' 53rd route. Victoria Falls Airport has been luring airlines after the upgrade, which has created a state-of-the-art international passenger terminal building and an aircraft parking area with a capacity to park three wide-bodied aircraft such as the Boeing 747 or equivalent. Its handling capacity has trebled to 1,5 million passengers per annum, up from 500 000. The upgrade created a new 4km-long by 60m-wide runway and associated taxiways, capable of landing long haul wide-bodied aircraft.

South African Airways became the first airline to have a wide-bodied plane land at the airport with a 222-seater A330-200 on March 1.

Other than luring wide-bodied planes, the airport also attracted Ethiopian Airlines which began three weekly flights on March 26.