Dubai-Congo flights to start next month

Dubai will have a direct air connection with Congo from next month as the African republic looks to capitalise on a ready demand from business travellers to the emirate.

Equatorial Congo Airlines (ECAir) will fly three times a week to Dubai from March 31, making the emirate its first stop in the Middle East. A return ticket for the seven-hour flight each way is to be priced at US$500.

“We have business people taking indirect flights to Dubai, so we definitely have the market for such a service,” said Fatima Beyina-Moussa, the director general of ECAir. “Almost 60 per cent of the travellers from the Republic of Congo would be corporate with the rest leisure travellers.”

While the UAE does not have a diplomatic mission in Congo, the Congolese minister of transport and maritime Mokoki Gilbert, expects trade to pick up following in the tailwind of the new direct flight.

(The Republic of Congo is not to be confused with the much larger Democratic Republic of Congo, also known as DRC, which lies to the east.)

Last year, Emirates Airline started flying into Conakry, the capital of Guinea in western Africa, four times a week.

ECAir, which is a little over two years old, expects to have a load factor between 60 and 70 per cent each way for the first year. It will operate the narrow-body Boeing 757-200 on the route, with a capacity of 148. Its current fleet has four aircraft but is expected to add three more this year.

Under air traffic rights regulations, the UAE airlines, too, could start direct flights to Congo.

Based in the Congolese capital of Brazzaville, ECAir said it was also in talks with Middle Eastern airlines to expand in the region through partnerships. Its only other international flight is to Paris.

The country also has plans to turn the Brazzaville airport into a hub for western and central Africa, Ms Beyina-Moussa said.

The Congolese national airline’s services are expected to temporarily move to Dubai’s new Al Maktoum International Airport due to scheduled runway repairs starting in May at Dubai International Airport.

The European Commission bans all airlines from Congo from its airspace but ECAir has circumvented the ban though its contract with the Geneva-based PrivatAir to operate its fleet, in cooperation with Lufthansa Technik for maintenance purposes.

Passenger load factor, a measure of utilisation of the capacity, of African carriers was the lowest globally at 69 per cent last year, according to the Geneva-based International Air Transport Association. Capacity expanded by 5.2 per cent, pushing up the load factor by 1.9 percentage points over 2012 levels. The demand from international passengers for African airlines rose 5.5 per cent, below 2012 growth of 7.5 per cent.

By comparison, the Middle Eastern airlines recorded the strongest increase in passenger traffic last year globally, a rise of 12.1 per cent over 2012.

From Brazzaville, ECAir will fly to Dubai on Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays, arriving at 01.40 the next day. It will leave Dubai on Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays at 0305.