The airline said in a press release that Thursday’s inaugural flight came after it secured approvals from aviation authorities in Uganda and Nigeria. "Uganda Airlines will operate flights to Nigeria three times a week, on Mondays, Thursdays and Sundays, using its state-of-the-art 258-seat Airbus A330-800neo aircraft."

Jenifer Bamuturaki, the airline’s chief executive officer, said the flight schedule is arranged to provide as much connectivity as possible to other destinations with minimal waiting times.

"Nigeria is Africa’s largest economy while Uganda’s central location on the continent makes it the ideal connection hub between East, West, North and Southern Africa," Bamuturaki was quoted by the press release as saying. "The direct flights will yield significant time savings for our guests who will be terminating their journeys in Uganda and those who may wish to travel onward within our network to Nairobi, Dar es Salaam, Zanzibar, Kilimanjaro, Mombasa, Juba, Bujumbura, Kinshasa, Dubai, Mogadishu or Johannesburg and Mumbai."

Lagos becomes Uganda Airlines’ 13th destination following the launch of direct flights to Mumbai, India, on Oct. 7.

Uganda's national airline has launched direct flights to Nigeria.