Precision Air (PW, Dar es Salaam) has strengthened its operations at Kilimanjaro, building it into a mini-hub and making it the biggest operator at the airport with six frequencies a day.

The initiative is aimed at enhancing connectivity in northern Tanzania by combining several routes in the region, Hillary Mremi, the carrier's marketing director, told The Citizen newspaper.

An additional frequency between Kilimanjaro and Dar es Salaam began on April 1, as did direct flights between Kilimanjaro and the designated capital of Dodoma in central Tanzania, operated with ATR72-500s.

Mremi said that passengers can now catch connecting flights from Kilimanjaro to six airports, namely Dar es Salaam, Dodoma, Zanzibar, and Mwanza locally as well as Nairobi Jomo Kenyatta and Entebbe internationally.

“Precision Air's prospective customers may now afford the luxury of time and time management at their disposal, whether they are heading to a business meeting or are just in time to catch a family event,” he said, adding that the new initiative also comes as the government boosts a number of tourism-related projects.

According to the ch-aviation capacity module, Kilimanjaro is currently the airline's third most important airport after Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar, seeing 58 of the airline's total 256 weekly frequencies (22.66%).

Precision Air's most important routes to Kilimanjaro are to Dar es Salaam with 1,200 seats per week (15.06% of the carrier's total), Nairobi with 672 seats (8.43%), and Zanzibar, also with 672 seats/week, making them the carrier's second and joint-fourth highest-capacity routes, respectively.

Fifteen airlines maintain scheduled and charter services to Kilimanjaro, including Air Tanzania, competing with Precision Air on the Dar es Salaam, Entebbe, and Zanzibar routes. International routes are provided by Ethiopian Airlines, flydubai, Kenya Airways, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, Qatar Airways, RwandAir, and Turkish Airlines.