Air Botswana gets two new aircraft

Botswana’s outstanding tourism destinations of the Okavango Delta and Chobe National Park are now even more accessible with the expansion of the Air Botswana fleet and route network.

The national carrier has bought two new 68-seat ATR72-500 turbopropeller aircraft, enabling it to open up new routes and increase frequencies. Visitors arriving in Johannesburg from all over the world transfer smoothly to Air Botswana services for their direct onward flight to Maun, on the edge of the greatest inland delta on earth, or to Kasane, gateway to Chobe, one of the most prolific wildlife areas in Africa. These services, operating daily between Johannesburg and Maun and three times a week between Johannesburg and Kasane, give passengers the convenience of direct travel to their destinations without having to route through Gaborone.

The two Air Botswana direct services are particularly significant for the important tourism sector, which is Botswana’s second largest revenue earner after mining. Within hours of touchdown at O R Tambo International Airport, Johannesburg, tourists disembark from their onward Air Botswana flight in Maun and are ferried by light aircraft to lodges and camps deep in the myriad waterways of the magnificent Okavango. The vast and hauntingly beautiful delta has an unequalled variety of dry and wetland wild animals living in close proximity, and abundant birdlife.

For Chobe-bound visitors, Kasane is on the northern Chobe River border with Namibia’s Caprivi Strip, virtually at the main gate to the national park, which is noted for its dramatic river setting and its large numbers of hippos, lions, elephants and birds. Air Botswana also operates between Maun and Kasane, providing a convenient and popular link between these premier destinations. The Kenya connection In another major development, newly introduced services operated jointly by Kenya Airways and Air Botswana open up the entire Kenya Airways network to the Botswana national carrier. From September, Kenya Airways will operate between Nairobi and Gaborone three times a week in code-share with Air Botswana.

The Kenya connection is widely welcomed as a boost to intra-African travel, trade and tourism. Gaborone becomes the 35th African destination on the Kenya Airways timetable. The Nairobi hub is significant also for Air Botswana because the Kenya Airways alliance with Air France and KLM extends the East African carrier’s overseas network to include Amsterdam, Bangkok, Dubai, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, London, Mumbai and Paris.