Dar es Salaam’s business community, but more so Tanzania’s country tourism sector, has welcomed the announcement of the addition of double daily flights between Dubai and Dar es Salaam. This will add a further 474 seats in each direction as well as added cargo capacity for exporters of fresh produce, cut flowers, and seafood to the main consumer markets in the Middle East and Europe.

In Dar es Salaam, in order to cover several events over the coming days, just a few weeks after upping their daily flights to 12 per week (effective October 27), Dubai’s award-winning airline Emirates announced that they will add 2 more flights effective January 1, 2015 to go fully double daily.

This moves Dar es Salaam to the same level as Nairobi, where Emirates operates two daily Airbus A340 frequencies, while in Tanzania one of the daily flights will continue to use a Boeing B777, and the other flight will use an Airbus A330-200.

“In the space of just over two months, we will see the doubling of flights between Dubai and Dar es Salaam. This is a vote of confidence by Emirates in the stability of Tanzania and the potential they see for this market, inbound and outbound traffic. The tourist board and private sector now must team up with Emirates and promote the destination across their network to reap the full benefit,” said a regular source from Dar es Salaam when asked to comment on yesterday’s announcement by Emirates’ Orhan Abbas, Senior Vice President Commercial Operations for Latin America, South and Central Afric