Uganda Airlines Starts Daily Entebbe-Kigali Flights November 18

One of East Africa's shortest international hops is about to get a second airline. Uganda Airlines will start daily scheduled flights between Entebbe and Kigali on November 18, 2026, the carrier announced on November 12 at a travel trade event at the Kigali Serena Hotel, organized with the Uganda High Commission in Rwanda and the Uganda Tourism Board under the theme “Strengthening Connectivity, Tourism and Business Relations Between Uganda and Rwanda.”

The route matters out of proportion to its length. Entebbe and Kigali are roughly 40 minutes apart by air, and for years RwandAir has been the only scheduled nonstop operator between the two capitals. Uganda Airlines will fly it with its Bombardier CRJ-900 regional jets, the 76-seat aircraft that anchor its regional network, with morning and early-afternoon departures offered across the week.

The connection is the product. Through Entebbe, passengers starting in Kigali reach more than 18 destinations on the Uganda Airlines network, including London, Mumbai, Dubai, Lagos, Johannesburg, Nairobi, Kinshasa, Dar es Salaam, Zanzibar, Lusaka, Harare and Accra. Acting chief commercial officer Shakila Rahim Lamar told the trade event the service is meant to complement RwandAir's flights and improve regional connectivity, not simply to split the same passengers two ways.

Kigali is the second new station in three weeks. Uganda Airlines began flying to Accra, Ghana, four times a week on October 27, and the expansion follows an agreement with Boeing, signed weeks ago, to buy eight new aircraft, four 737-8s and four 787-9 Dreamliners, for regional and long-haul growth. Acting chief executive Girma Wake has described both new destinations as commercially attractive markets driven by business travel, trade, tourism and investment.

For travelers, the practical change is a choice where there wasn't one. A daily second carrier on the corridor means a missed morning flight no longer costs a day, and through-tickets from Kigali to London or Mumbai no longer have to route through a competitor's hub. Fares and exact timings sit with the airline's booking channels; the structural fact, two flag carriers on one short route, is what changes the market.

What to watch after November 18 is whether the route holds its daily frequency through the low season and whether the Entebbe connections time well enough to pull Kigali passengers off routings through Nairobi and Addis Ababa. Uganda Airlines is betting its hub geography on it. The capitals are close; the networks behind them are the real distance this flight shortens.

The airline flying the route is young itself. Uganda Airlines was revived in 2019, eighteen years after the original carrier was liquidated, and took delivery of its first CRJ-900s at Bombardier's Mirabel plant in Canada that April, becoming the first African operator of the type with the manufacturer's Atmosphere cabin. The Kigali launch is the network reaching the neighbor it arguably should have served first, a point acting chief executive Girma Wake has made himself in regretting that the route didn't come earlier.