Ammon News - AMMAN (Petra)-Royal Jordanian is to launch on July 3, 2013 a regular service between Amman and each of Lagos, the economic capital of Nigeria and Accra, the capital of Ghana. The new additions will raise the number of the RJ destinations to 61 spanned over four continents.

According to a Royal Jordanian statement, opening these two new destinations in Africa comes in line with the RJ strategy to find new tourism and travel markets in different countries around the world in order to boost inbound tourism to the kingdom and to generate more revenues for the airline, given the decline in tourism movement from the traditional markets of Europe and North America, resulting from the instability in the Middle East since three years.

Connecting Amman with these two African cities is bound to attract large numbers of passengers, particularly Muslim pilgrims who wish to continue their flights to Saudi Arabia to conduct Hajj and Umrah, and those who like to visit the shrines and tombs of Prophet Mohammad’s companions before they proceed on their religious journey. The service will also transport Christian pilgrims who come to Jordan to visit the Baptism site and other Christian holy sites in Jordan and the Middle East.

This new route will serve several types of tourism, such as medical, as Jordan is renowned for its high-standard medical treatment, and help business travelers and investors wishing to do business with Jordan and thus help develop economic and trade relations, and support the movement of goods among countries. Moreover, the Lagos/Accra flight is bound to feed other RJ routes, for passengers transiting via Queen Alia International Airport on their way to Jeddah, Madina Munawarah, Dubai, Beirut, Delhi and others.

The company will operate the route (Amman-Lagos-Accra-Lagos-Amman) twice weekly with its wide-bodied, 280-seat Airbus A330s, on Wednesdays and Fridays. On Wednesdays, the aircraft leaves Amman at 01:00 in the morning and arrives in Lagos at 05:20 am. It departs Lagos at 06:20 am and lands in Accra at 06:25 am (local time). It takes off from Accra to Lagos at 08:00 am, arriving at 10:05am. The flight takes off from Lagos at 11:05 am and arrives in Amman at 19:25 pm.

On Fridays, the plane leaves Amman at 11 am and lands in Lagos at 15:20 pm. It departs Lagos at 16:20 pm to reach Accra at 16:25 pm (local time) and takes off from Accra at 18:35 pm to arrive in Lagos at 20:40 pm. It leaves Lagos for Amman at 21:40 pm, arriving in Amman the next day at 06:00 am.