RwandAir, the state-run Rwandan airline, plans to add a European destination this year and carry a record 1 million passengers by 2017 as it boosts the size of its fleet.

The carrier is considering flying to either London, Paris or Frankfurt by the end of the year, depending on which country it can obtain permission from first, Chief Executive Officer John Mirenge said in an interview in the capital, Kigali. It handled 600,000 passengers in 2015, up from 500,000 a year earlier, he said.

The airline is expanding its fleet as it adds routes, eyeing cities in Ivory Coast, Sudan, Mali, Benin, Zimbabwe and Malawi along with Guangzhou in China and India’s Mumbai. It will take delivery of an Airbus aircraft in September and another in December, which were financed with a $160 million loan from the Eastern and Southern African Trade and Development Bank, and plans to lease two Boeing Co. planes this year, said Mirenge.

RwandAir plans to “serve markets that we never thought would be covered” while forming partnerships, including with Ethiopian Airlines Enterprise, to reach more customers, he said.

The company’s load factor -- the number of miles flown by passengers as a proportion of available seat miles -- is too low at about 60 percent and the goal is to increase it to 75 percent to 80 percent, said Mirenge. “We are not yet at optimal utilization,” he said.

Credit: Bloomberg.com