Uganda Airlines Signs Mega Deals with Emirates, Qatar & KLM

With the need to increase their international traffic, Uganda Airlines is taking a step to enter into interline agreements with some notable air travel agencies.

These are Qatar Airways, KLM, and Emirates. To make it simple, Interline in air transport services is an agreement signed between two airlines. It allows one flight operator to sell services provided by another airline to a customer.

For example, a traveler can get from Belgium by Brussels up to Nairobi. Then connect to Entebbe airport by Kenya Airways or any other airline. Multiple companies use this option to sell routes they are not able to serve alone.

Sources indicate that the deal between Uganda Airlines and Emirates is unilateral. Unilateral means that Emirates will sell UGA operational routes, but the Country’s national carrier won’t be able to sell Emirates routes.

Therefore the UAE’s flag carrier will feed passengers into Uganda Airline’s routes out of Entebbe airport and Dubai.

The one for Qatar Airways is bilateral, and both agencies will sell each other’s routes. The one for KLM, discussions are still going on, but there are aiming to sign a bilateral agreement. Here is another statement from the officials

“For Bilateral, we shall market each other and sell routes that each Airline operates. They will connect our clients worldwide, feed into their other destinations beyond their hub Airports and destinations where we do not fly to at the moment.”

These agreements will widen our market in Africa, America, the Middle East, Australia, and other parts of Europe.

Uganda Airlines has other great partnerships like the bilateral Interline E-Ticketing (IET) with Hahn Air and APG. These will be plating carriers in markets where Uganda Airlines is not active on BSP (Billing and Settlement Plan).

For IATA full Membership, sources indicate that Uganda Airlines needs IATA Operational Safety Audit (IOSA) registration.

It is an administrative review by the Membership Department. Lastly, is to pay all application fees and dues required. After all that, it will be issued the full membership license.