Browsing: Kenya Airways

Kenya’s national carrier Kenya Airways PLC has announce the resumption of flights to Heathrow, London from Nairobi’s Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) after a three-month break.

The direct flights, which begun on 26th of June 2021, follows the lifting of the suspension of flights to from the United Kingdom by the Government of Kenya.

The ban was effected on April 9, in retaliation of a similar move by the UK, when they placed Kenya in a list of its prohibited destination.

According to the airline, flights from London will include a one-stop connection through Nairobi to the rest of Kenya and Africa’s key destinations.

Commenting on the development, the airline’s Chief Commercial and Customer Officer Julius Thairu said the the resumption of flights to London, United Kingdom is in line with KQ’s plans to grow and expand their routes even as restrictions related to COVID-19 lift.

“The move will positively …

Growing competitiveness, a roller coaster of fuel prices, labor unions, and especially the phenomenon of low-cost carriers have made it all the more difficult to reach positive earnings pretty much in every route.

With a number of countries sporting continental distances, Africa has been an exciting promise for air carriers, but not without its challenges. Poor infrastructure and the high cost of maintenance and logistics have plagued the development of an effective air grid in the continent. Nevertheless, a great opportunity remains.

At the beginning of the last decade, South African Airways was a dominant force, carrying some 9 million passengers yearly while Kenya Airways and Ethiopian Airlines combined were just shy of 6 million yearly passengers. However, poor management choices combined with borderline irresponsible behavior from …

Africa’s aviation industry represents a huge market that the continent’s airlines need to exploit more fully; however over the years, the sector has competed unfavorably with other international carriers.  This is because of high air transport costs, poor intra-Africa connectivity/market access limitations as well as the high costs of operations. 

Last month, the African Aviation Industry Group (AAIG) held a high-level webinar to weigh in on practical solutions to reduce the high cost of air transport operations in Africa. The webinar themed “Achieving Affordable Air Transport across Africa”, saw stakeholders converge to determine what ails the industry as well as recommendations to propel the industry ahead.

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Kenya Airways (KQ) net loss for the first six months ended June 2020 widened by 67.3 per cent to $132 million due to grounding of flights as a measure to curb the spread of the COVID-19pandemic.

According to Kenya Airways, passenger numbers dropped by 55.5 per cent to 1.1 million compared to 2.4 million recorded over the same period in 2019, affecting its revenues.

According to KQ’s chairman Michael Joseph, the national carrier operations were severely affected by the pandemic resulting in depressed half-year results.

“The network activity from April to June was minimal due to travel restrictions and lockdowns effectively reducing operations to almost nil in connecting our home market to key cities.” He said

This year’s half-year loss is more than the carrier has been posting for the last three years.

In 2019, KQ posted a net loss of $120 million an increase from $70 million recorded in …

Desperate times call for desperate measures and with Kenya’s flower sector hit hard by covid-19, it is time that the country sought ways to maintain relationships with its key markets.

The first gesture by the Kenya flower sector has been to send some 300 bouquets to the United Kingdom in what was called “solidarity with covid-19 frontline combatants” in a campaign dubbed Flowers For Hope.

Kenya’s national carrier Kenya Airways (KQ) flew the consignment on Friday night last week in a move set to keep the flower market open for business when the coronavirus pandemic passes.

The flowers to be distributed to those in the frontline of combating the pandemic including doctors, nurses and recovering patients and care homes were in sleeves inscribed with President Uhuru Kenyatta’s goodwill message.

Kenyatta’s message read, “There have been a few moments in history when the world has faced a crisis as far-reaching …

We are in a recession!

This is the stark reality that the world is facing and it has come sooner than many have predicted thanks to the covid-19 coronavirus. Already, the world is reeling from shock at the sheer magnitude of effect the virus has had on every aspect of life.

In addition to the lives and man-hours lost, the world will take a long time to recover from the hit. The global economy has suffered massive losses since the WHO announced the threat of the disease which was made public globally on December 31, 2019.

Already, airlines have started manifesting the effects of the coronavirus outbreak with Kenya Airways (KQ) staff taking a pay cut starting with newly appointed CEO Allan Kilavuka who will see his salary whittled down by 80 per cent from the 35 per cent he had announced earlier.

Tala’s next mission after freezing operations in

As the rest of the country shuts down all entry ports, heavily reliant on tourism, the spice Isles of Zanzibar are allowing charter flights to land but with strict conditions.

Isles authorities have permitted charter flights bringing tourists to the island to land but on condition that all persons on board enter a 14 days quarantine stay, at their own expense.

This surprising turn of events happens in the backdrop of ongoing global threat of the spread of coronavirus. Even leading sports leagues have been cancelled and regional high profile meetings are been held on conference calls.

Across Africa, the tourism industry has come to an almost complete shutdown. It is time immemorial since a disease stopped people from touring and going for holidays, at least not since the deadly World War I and II power viruses.

With most all African countries eventually succumbing to the threat and finally closing …

The airline business is becoming messier by the day as the covid-19 coronavirus continues disrupting business in a way never seen before.

From manufacturing to travel, entertainment to medicine, all sectors of the economy have been jolted by the virus whose epicentre is Wuhan, China. The disease, “a pneumonia of unknown cause detected in Wuhan, China,” was first reported to the WHO Country Office in China on 31 December 2019. From then, it has been a rollercoaster.

The real magnitude of the virus is starting to manifest with deaths, infections and isolations becoming the order of the day worldwide. While the disease in itself is not a death sentence, the fear that people may contract it en masse burdening health infrastructure in several countries has led to people isolating themselves, and observation, in what has now become the norm- social distancing.

See: Coronavirus shakes economies, world forced to change perspective

Mikosz announced his resignation in May this year slightly under a year to the end of his term…

Kenya Airways management has fallen out with its pilots over continued losses at the airline, in the latest of many stand-offs between the two groups.

This is in the wake of a Ksh8.5 billion (US$81.9 million) half year 2019 (January-June) net loss as the carrier remains in the red.

READ:Kenya’s national carrier sinks into Ksh8.6 billion loss

The latest performance is a dip compared to the Ksh4 billion (US$38.6 million) net loss reported in a similar period last year.

This is despite a slight growth in total income during the period which went up to Ksh58.9 billion compared to Ksh52.2 billion same period last year.

Management has blamed the losses to high operating cost occasioned by an expanded network.

During the period, KQ, as it is known by its international code, saw its operating costs edged up to Ksh61.5 billion compared to Ksh53.2 billion last year, which eroded gains …