Air Mauritius and Air Madagascar signed an agreement on Friday aimed at boosting passenger traffic by increasing flights between the two Indian Ocean islands and opening new routes into Africa.

"Firstly, we are going to operate more flights and new routes, so frequency is going to increase," said Megh Pillay, managing director of Air Mauritius at the signing of the accord.

The agreement will increase the number of flights between Mauritius and Madagascar to nine per week, compared to seven currently.

It also provides for a new twice weekly route from Mauritius to Madagascar's capital of Antananarivo and on to Nairobi in Kenya. A new once weekly route will fly from Mauritius to Antananarivo and on to Comoros' capital of Moroni.

"The flights between Mauritius and Madagascar are going to be synchronized with onward flights to Nairobi and Comoros where we can pick up and offload passengers, giving more opportunities to ourselves to fill our flights and increase our load factor," said Pillay.

He said this would mean greater connectivity to Africa and beyond via Nairobi, considered a regional hub, and also to the remote Indian Ocean archipelago of Comoros.

"Comoros has very limited air services and there are people from all over the world, who need to go there for business and other reasons," said Pillay. "So this makes it much easier for them to travel there".

The agreement would also enable the two airlines to sell an unlimited number of seats to passengers on the other's airline through a free-flow arrangement.

Berend Bruns, director general of Air Madagascar said the agreement would maximite the potential of the limited fleets of both national carriers, and at the same time boost passenger traffic, mainly tourists and businessmen.

"The normal market growth I expect to see in next one to two years is about 10 percent," said Bruns.

A key part of the agreement will be weekly cargo flights flying to Mauritius-Madagascar-Europe, mainly Paris, which officials say will help textile firms in both countries meet their orders for customers in Europe and United States on time.

The agreement is expected to take effect from October 31.

(Reuters)