Air travel across East Africa could soon be the order of the day with three budget airlines set to battle out for East Africa air travel business. Kenya Airway's Jambo Jet and FastJet (Fly540) are bound to set the stage for low fares in local and regional passenger services by the end of the year. Both airlines have received approval from the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority (KCAA) to operate larger types of aircraft from what they are currently using in the region.

Jambo Jet will be using a Boeing 737 as low budget carrier while Fly540, which has been using smaller Bombardier jets on its regional routes, got the approval to fly the bigger Airbus A319 that will give it room to offer cheaper fares.

Both FastJet and Kenya Airways (Jambo Jet) have indicated that they will have regional return fares at tunes of about KES 6,000.  Prices could go lower than the projected KES 6,000 on local routes if FastJet’s keeps the promise of charging $20 (KES 1,700) one way fare on local routes.

Here is a table of current fares charged by airlines on local routes in East Africa.

[caption id="attachment_23307" align="aligncenter" width="645"] The Air Fares are provisional rates posted by Airlines to TravelStart Kenya for the Month of October. Fares are subject to change depending on the booking date's exchange rates. Air Fares for Arusha, Dar and Juba are calculated as 1US$=KES 85. (Pesatalk)[/caption]

From the table above, if budget airlines decide to charge fares on local routes ranging between KES 6,000 and KES 7,000 return, this would be an average of 50% drop in air fares. The cheap low budget flights will however have little or no baggage allowance and refreshments, making the biggest difference from what airlines currently offer.