Economy
Kenya Airways eyes September to resume passengers flight
President Uhuru Kenyatta took a cautious approach to the pandemic, warning that relaxing measures such as curfews and containment of certain counties by just 20 percent would lead to 200,000 infections and 30,000 deaths by December.
The airline stopped international flights after a State order on March 22. The order effectively cut off Kenya Airways’ flow of new revenues at a time it had no cash reserves.
Kenya Airways (KQ) passenger flights to resume earliest in September but with a low capacity, ending over five months of lost revenue due to Covid-19 pandemic.
The airline sees this as the best-case scenario, but cautions that the ultimate length of suspension of the passenger flight business is still uncertain.
There is reasonable expectation that the flights could resume in the third quarter of the year with business expected to have started at very low capacity and a gradual ramp-up, influenced by gradual lifting of travel bans, uncertain passenger confidence and health safety measures,” KQ says in its latest annual report.
The airline says that discussions with key industry stakeholders are on in relation to safe return to passenger routes. It is expected that the airline will be able to cover its variable costs on resumption.
The resumption is expected to happen within the period of the moratoriums already being negotiated with lenders and lessors and thereby allowing the airline to grow back its revenue base and gradually cover its fixed costs,” says the airline.
Kenya Airways has been operating only cargo flights for essentials such as medicine but this has not been enough to sustain business given that it was already in a loss territory pre-coronavirus.
Chief Executive Officer Allan Kilavuka had unsuccessfully applied for a bailout from the National Treasury to help meet maintenance costs of grounded planes, pay salaries and settle utility bills like security, water and electricity.
Kenya Insights allows guest blogging, if you want to be published on Kenya’s most authoritative and accurate blog, have an expose, news TIPS, story angles, human interest stories, drop us an email on [email protected] or via Telegram
Sugar Empire in the Dock: How Kibos’s Mombasa Refinery Landed 1,481 Phantom Tonnes at the Port — and Why Nine Government Agencies Are Now Watching Its Every Move
G-to-G Deal Fails To Cushion Kenyans As Country Stares At Adulterated Fuel After Hiked Prices
Getting Away With It: How Kenya’s Most Politically Connected Fuel Company Gulf Energy Is Pocketing Billions While Rival Firms Face Public Wrath
The Great Vanishing Act: Odinga Family Moves Be Energy Millions to Secret Tax Haven
Kenyan Motorists Stare At Possible Engine Damage And Heavy Losses As Report Confirms Substandard Fuel In Circulation
Best Betting Sites in Kenya for 2026
How Safaricom Could Sell You Out To KRA
A Case That Refuses To Die: EABL Stake Sale Faces Fresh Challenge After Temporary Reprieve
The Kewota Racket: How Kenya’s Female Teachers Are Being Bled Dry
Raila-Linked Firm Benefited From G-to-G Fuel Import Deal
Forged Legacy: How Kaplan and Stratton’s Peter Gachuhi Is Accused of Faking a Top AG’s Will as State Claims Damning Evidence
THE HANDSHAKE THAT BECAME A NOOSE: How Tuju’s Alleged Intimate Access to EADB’s Yeda Apopo Produced a Sh294 Million Deal With No Written Contract, and Why That Trust Destroyed an Empire
Sold And Abandoned: How Diageo and Asahi Are Locking Kenya’s EABL Minority Shareholders Out Of East Africa’s Biggest Corporate Heist
Poison at the Pump: How Kenya’s Fuel Marking System May Be Exposing Millions to Cancer-Causing Chemicals
How Firm Linked To Mombasa Tycoon Jaffer Was Allowed To Import Fuel At Bloated Price And Set To Make Billions In Profits From Iranian War Crisis In Kenya
THE ZAKHEM-ECOBANK MACHINE: How Kenya’s Courts Were Weaponised to Drain a State Corporation of Over KES 78 Billion
The Teflon Company: How Gulf Energy’s Insiders Built Billions on Kenya’s Fuel, and Walked Away Clean
Inside Details Of Sh78 Billion Fraud in KPC’s Mombasa-Nairobi Line 5 Pipeline Project That Has Continued To Bleed The Country
The Debt They Would Not Pay: How Standard Group Ducked Sh50 Million In Regulatory Fee For Years, Then Called It A Witch-Hunt
Men Linked to Akasha Drug Dynasty Charged With Death Threats and Assault at Nairobi Nightclub
-
Business2 weeks agoPoison at the Pump: How Kenya’s Fuel Marking System May Be Exposing Millions to Cancer-Causing Chemicals
-
Investigations2 weeks agoTHE ZAKHEM-ECOBANK MACHINE: How Kenya’s Courts Were Weaponised to Drain a State Corporation of Over KES 78 Billion
-
Investigations1 week agoThe Teflon Company: How Gulf Energy’s Insiders Built Billions on Kenya’s Fuel, and Walked Away Clean
-
Investigations1 week agoInside Details Of Sh78 Billion Fraud in KPC’s Mombasa-Nairobi Line 5 Pipeline Project That Has Continued To Bleed The Country
-
News1 week agoMombasa Lawyer Exposed In Sh600 Million Alleged Double-Dealing Diani Property Transaction
-
Business7 days agoWattanga Fired Over Incompetence in Tech, Insiders Say
-
Investigations1 week agoWho Architected the Ksh 4.8 Billion Fuel Scandal? Two CSs Now Caught in the Storm
-
News1 week agoThe Lawyer at the Centre of Kenya’s State Machine: Eric Gumbo, the AG’s Bypassed Office, and the Half-Billion-Shilling Question