As Air France continues to receive new units for its fleet it’s also planning its 2023 summer operations. In particular the French national carrier will be boost its operations in East Africa. We’ll be covering just this latest Air France news here in this post. All the schedule changes we’ll be talking about below are relative to the April-September 2023 time frame.
Air France New Flights to Zanzibar and Dar Es Salam
Although Air France already operated flights to Zanzibar (Tanzania), this connection is getting an upgrade in the coming year. It will no longer be a simple non stop flight to Zanzibar but it will also feature a stop in Dar Es Salam, Tanzania’s capital.
The operation of this flight is quite peculiar, as it’ll feature only one stop in each airport. In other words the flight will not follow the reverse path on its way back to Paris. Here’s how it’ll work:
- Air France flight AF876 will depart Paris Charles de Gaulle at 10:20AM and arrive into Zanzibar at 8:15PM. The flight is scheduled for every Monday, Wednesday and Saturday. It will then depart Zanzibar at 9:45PM and arrive into Dar Es Salam at 10:20PM.
- Without changing flight number, with it remaining AF876, the flight will depart Dar Es Salam at 11:50PM and arrive into Paris Charles de Gaulle at 07:55AM.
The peculiarity of this Air France operation is that the flight number never changes. It remains the same both on the outbound and inbound flights.
The flight will be operated by one of the French flag carrier’s Boeing 787-9s. These aircraft chosen for the Zanzibar-Dar Es Salam sector feature:
- 30 Business Class Seats
- 21 Premium Economy Seats
- 225 Economy Class Seats
The Extra Flights to Nairobi and Antananarivo
Tanzania is not the only east African country to see a rise in Air France flights in 2023, this is the case of Kenya and Madagascar also. Starting June 12th 2023 AF will be operating a daily non stop flight to Nairobi. This flight will be also operated by one of the carrier’s 787-9s. This marks an increase from the current 6 weekly flights currently operated.
Also Antananarivo, the capital of Madagascar, will have more non stop flights to and from Paris in 2023. AF will fly to the island 5 times a week, instead of the current 4. In this case though the airline will fly the route with its Airbus A350-900s. These are equipped with:
- 34 Business Class Seats
- 24 Premium Economy Seats
- 266 Economy Class Seats
Other Operational Updates
Air France also announced other 2 operational updates for the coming months, which are not related to the African continent.
- Flights to Hong Kong on a 3 times weekly frequency are expected to resume on January 9th 2023. The flight will be operated by the airline’s 777-300ERs
- Newark Liberty Airport will get a daily connection to Paris Charles de Gaulle, starting December 12th. This flight will instead be flown by AF’s 777-200ERs.
