Air Tanzania

Air Tanzania is one of the smaller airlines you meet in East Africa – and that is exactly why it is a rewarding target for spotters. About 15 aircraft, five different types and a giraffe on the tail: if you know the fleet, you can place every aircraft quickly. At the same time, the airline is an example of how changeable the business of state-owned airlines can be. This page shows you how to recognize Air Tanzania, which types it flies and where you can actually get it in front of your lens.

Air Tanzania at a glance

Air Tanzania is the state-owned airline of Tanzania, based at its hub in Dar es Salaam. It is wholly owned by the Tanzanian state and flies domestically, in the region around the Indian Ocean and, with the Dreamliner, on longer routes too. Besides the main airport, Kilimanjaro, Mwanza on Lake Victoria and Zanzibar play an important role in the network.

Air Tanzania belongs to no alliance. The airline is a member of the African airline association AFRAA and of IATA and works with individual partners through interline agreements, including Qatar Airways and Air India. That sets it apart from large African network airlines such as Ethiopian Airlines, which flies in Star Alliance, or Kenya Airways in neighboring Kenya.

Codes and callsign

• IATA code TC: appears in the flight number, on tickets and on departure boards.
• ICAO code ATC: appears in the air traffic control flight plan and on many flight trackers.
• Callsign TANZANIA: how the crew identifies itself on the radio.
• Registration 5H-: the country prefix for aircraft registered in Tanzania.

The ICAO code ATC sometimes raises a smile among beginners because in aviation ATC otherwise stands for air traffic control. The airline code has nothing to do with air traffic control, though. How country prefixes and registrations are structured is explained in the guide to aircraft registrations.

A history full of restarts

Air Tanzania is older than its young fleet suggests. The airline was founded on March 11, 1977, as Air Tanzania Corporation, after the joint company East African Airways of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda had broken apart. It began operations in June 1977 with a leased DC-9. In the following years it flew Boeing 737s, Fokker F27s and DHC-6 Twin Otters, among others.

The years after were turbulent. In the mid-1990s Air Tanzania took part in the short-lived joint airline Alliance Air with Uganda and South African Airways. Partial privatization followed in 2002: South African Airways took 49 percent of the new Air Tanzania Company Limited (ATCL). The partnership brought no profits, and in 2006 the state bought the shares back. With the 2007 restart the airline got its current giraffe logo.

Difficult years followed until 2015, with licensing problems and repeated groundings because there simply weren’t enough aircraft. The turnaround came from 2016: through the state-owned Tanzania Government Flight Agency (TGFA), the government bought new aircraft and leased them to the airline. Within a few years that brought Q400s, A220s and Dreamliners to Dar es Salaam.

The fleet: five types, hardly any repeats

The Air Tanzania fleet is small but surprisingly varied. As of October 2026, according to common fleet overviews, it looks like this:

Type	Number	Seats (business/economy)	Use	Spotter tip
De Havilland Canada Dash 8-400 (Q400)	5 (+1 on order)	6 / 70	Domestic and short-haul	Turboprop with high-mounted wings
Airbus A220-300	4	12 / 120	Domestic and regional	First African A220 operator
Boeing 787-8	3	22 / 240	Longer routes	The flagship of the fleet
Boeing 737 MAX 9	2	16 / 165	Regional medium-haul	Longer MAX version with split winglets
Boeing 767-300F	1	Cargo	Cargo service	The only pure freighter

Numbers and cabin layouts can change quickly through deliveries, maintenance breaks or leasing. For spotters the small number is an advantage: if you want to collect the complete fleet (more in the guide Collecting airlines), you have a manageable goal – but you need patience, because some types exist in only one or two examples.

Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner

The first Dreamliner arrived in Dar es Salaam in July 2018, and three Boeing 787-8s are now flying. They are used mainly on the longer routes in the network. The 787-8 is the shortest Dreamliner version; you can recognize it from afar by the serrated engine nacelles and the strongly upswept wings. If you are unsure, the comparison telling the Boeing 777 and 787 apart helps.

Airbus A220-300

With the Airbus A220-300, Air Tanzania wrote a small piece of type history: the first two aircraft, 5H-TCH and 5H-TCI, arrived in December 2018 and January 2019 – back then still ordered under the name Bombardier CS300. That made Air Tanzania the first operator of the type in Africa. Four A220s are in service today, mainly domestically and to neighboring countries.

Boeing 737 MAX 9

At the Dubai Airshow in November 2021, Air Tanzania ordered two Boeing 737 MAX aircraft, among other things. Two 737 MAX 9s fly today – a rather rare version that you don’t see all that often at African airports. Compared with the more widespread MAX 8, the fuselage is slightly longer; in the field the differences are subtle, though, and the type code B39M on the tracker is the surest clue.

De Havilland Canada Dash 8-400

The Dash 8-400 – often still called the Q400 – was the first new aircraft of the revival in 2016. With five aircraft it is the most numerous type and serves mainly domestic airports whose runways are too short for the jets or whose demand is too small. The manufacturer today is De Havilland Canada. How to tell it apart from an ATR is shown in the guide Telling turboprops apart.

Boeing 767-300F

Since the expansion of its cargo business, Air Tanzania has had its own Boeing 767-300F in the fleet. It is the airline’s only pure freighter and therefore, for many collectors, the hardest catch. Typical of the freighter: no cabin windows and a large cargo door on the left side of the fuselage ahead of the wing. You can find more features in the guide Recognizing freighters.

How to recognize Air Tanzania

The most important feature is on the tail: a giraffe. The animal is a national symbol of Tanzania and has been the airline’s logo since 2007. The name of the frequent flyer program alludes to it as well – “Twiga” is the Swahili word for giraffe, hence Twiga Miles.

The second feature is the registration. All aircraft carry the Tanzanian prefix 5H-, many of them in a series beginning with 5H-TC – such as the first two A220s, 5H-TCH and 5H-TCI, or the Q400 5H-TCE. Because the fleet is so small, you can quickly use the registration to check which aircraft you are still missing.

The third feature is the mix of types. Hardly any airline of this size flies a turboprop, A220, 737 MAX, Dreamliner and a widebody freighter at the same time. If you see a giraffe on one of these types at an East African airport, you are almost always right with Air Tanzania.

Routes and network

The Air Tanzania network is strongly focused on Tanzania and the neighboring region. Domestically, the airline connects Dar es Salaam with numerous cities, including Arusha, Dodoma, Mwanza, Kigoma, Mbeya and Bukoba, plus Kilimanjaro and the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba. Regionally it flies to Nairobi, Entebbe, Bujumbura, Lusaka, Harare, Lubumbashi and the Comoros, among others.

Beyond that, Air Tanzania also flies further afield: destinations such as Mumbai, Dubai, Muscat and Guangzhou as well as Johannesburg are on the list. The route network changes regularly, though – as of October 2026, new destinations keep being announced and others dropped. Check the current schedule before any spotting plan.

Why you won’t see Air Tanzania in the EU

Air Tanzania used to fly to what is now the EU, including Frankfurt, Rome and Athens. Today that is ruled out: in December 2024 the EU put the airline on the EU Air Safety List after an assessment by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA). Since June 2025 the operating ban has even applied to all airlines licensed in Tanzania. That means Air Tanzania may not operate flights into the EU, out of the EU or through EU airspace.

How this list works, who compiles it and how airlines get off it again is explained in the article on the EU Air Safety List. For spotters this means, quite practically: from a German perspective, an Air Tanzania sighting is only possible when traveling – and therefore a real highlight in your logbook.

Spotting while traveling

The best chance of Air Tanzania is a trip to Tanzania itself. Julius Nyerere International Airport in Dar es Salaam (DAR) is the home base; here you will meet all the types in the fleet. International flights use Terminal 3, which opened in 2019, and the main runway 05/23 is 3,000 meters long. Kilimanjaro and Zanzibar are also worthwhile because many vacationers land there anyway – and because besides Air Tanzania you also see leisure airlines and Gulf carriers there.

Important: the rules on photography at airports differ markedly from country to country. What is a given in Germany can cause trouble with security forces elsewhere. Inform yourself beforehand, keep your distance from fences and security areas and ask if in doubt. You can find general tips in the guide Plane spotting on vacation.

Outside Tanzania you have chances at large connecting hubs, such as Dubai Airport or Johannesburg Airport. In South Africa, take a look at the guide Plane spotting in South Africa. And because many destinations are served only a few times a week, planning decides the sighting.

Air Tanzania in comparison

In East Africa, Air Tanzania competes with considerably larger neighbors. Kenya Airways from Nairobi and above all Ethiopian Airlines from Addis Ababa have far larger fleets and networks. Closer to Air Tanzania is RwandAir from Kigali, also a state-owned airline with a small, mixed fleet.

Airline	Country	Hub	Typical spotter impression
Air Tanzania	Tanzania	Dar es Salaam (DAR)	Small, very mixed fleet with a giraffe
Kenya Airways	Kenya	Nairobi (NBO)	Regional network carrier with Dreamliners
Ethiopian Airlines	Ethiopia	Addis Ababa (ADD)	Africa’s largest airline, very large network
RwandAir	Rwanda	Kigali (KGL)	Small state-owned airline with a regional focus

Common mix-ups

• Mistaking ATC for air traffic control – the ICAO code ATC belongs to Air Tanzania and has nothing to do with air traffic control.
• Mistaking TC for Turkey – country codes and airline codes are different systems; TC is the IATA code of Air Tanzania.
• Logging the A220 as a Bombardier – it was ordered as the CS300, but is delivered and listed today as the Airbus A220-300.
• Entering the 737 MAX 9 as a MAX 8 – the type code B39M in the tracker makes it clear.
• Expecting Air Tanzania in the EU – because of the EU Air Safety List, the airline does not fly to the EU.
• Assuming every giraffe is Air Tanzania – animal motifs are widespread; the prefix 5H- decides.

Conclusion

Air Tanzania is a small state-owned airline with a great history full of restarts. Since the revival from 2016 it has flown a young but unusually mixed fleet of Dreamliners, A220s, 737 MAX 9s, Q400s and a 767 freighter. For spotters from Germany, the EU operating ban makes it a travel destination – but if you are traveling in East Africa, with a bit of patience you can collect the manageable fleet almost completely.