Travellers from the region, including Doha, stand to gain as Emirates airline has announced that it will connect Bamako, the capital and largest city of Mali, to its global network from October 25.
With this, Emirates will connect Bamako with 16 cities in the Middle East through just one stop at Dubai, an official has stressed.
Once the new service commences, Bamako will become Emirates’ 28th destination in Africa and sixth in West Africa, further strengthening the region’s connectivity with the world through the airline’s global network of more than 140 destinations across six continents, it has said in a statement.
Bamako will be linked to Emirates’ current four-times-a-week service to Dakar, Senegal, which is operated by an Airbus A340-300 and offers 12 seats in first class, 42 in business class and 213 in economy class.
Bamako is one of the fastest growing cities in the world with a population of about 2.3mn people and is located in the southwestern part of Mali.
“There is currently no direct service between Dubai and Bamako. Mali has a growing economy and huge tourism potential, and we expect that linking Bamako to our Dakar service will greatly boost both business and leisure travel to and from Mali,” said Adil al-Ghaith, Emirates senior vice-president, commercial operations, northern and western Africa.
“For example, Emirates will now connect Bamako with 24 cities in the Far East and Australasia and 16 in the Middle East, through just one convenient stop at our state-of-the-art hub, Dubai. This will reduce travel time and increase comfort when travelling to and from Mali,” he added.
Mali is one of Africa’s top gold producers and it also boasts of four Unesco World Heritage sites, which are the famous city of Timbuktu, the Old Towns of Djenne, the Tomb of Askia and the Cliff of Bandiagara.
In addition to passenger services, Emirates SkyCargo - the airline’s freight division - offers about 13 tonnes of cargo capacity per flight, which will further support Mali’s exports, such as seed oil, leather, fresh fruit and semi-conductors, and imports of woven fabrics, machinery parts and components, pharmaceutical products and electrical and electronic equipment.
The flight to Bamako will depart on Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday at 7.20am and arrive in Bamako at 1.10pm. It will then depart Bamako at 2.40pm and arrive in Dakar at 4.30pm. The return flight will depart Dakar at 6pm and arrive back in Dubai at 7.30am the next day.



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