NAIROBI/DAR ES SALAAM, Aug 3 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Kenya Airways resumed international flights on Saturday, heading to about 30 destinations for the first time since the routes were suspended in March due to the Coronavirus.
The carrier, in which Air France KLM holds a small stake, resumed domestic flights in mid-July after the government cleared local air travel.
“We announced we are starting with 27 destinations, we increased it to 30 just following demand,” Allan Kilavuka, the airline’s chief executive officer, said during a ceremony ahead of seeing off a flight to London.
He said for the rest of the year the airline expected demand to remain below 50% of capacity, but it would increase flight frequencies depending on demand.
“In fact 2020, we call it a lost year. Because at some point we even see the demand of 25% in some months, in some months we see 38%,” he said.
Kilavuka said so far the company had laid off some 650 people, mostly trainee pilots, trainee cabin crew, technician trainees and newly hired staff on probation.
The airline was struggling long before the coronavirus outbreak, posting 2019 losses of almost 13 billion shillings ($120 million).
Last month the Nairobi Securities Exchange suspended trading of Kenya Airways shares for three months, citing the government’s plan to restructure the carrier, after it submitted to parliament a draft law on nationalising the airline.
Separately, Tanzania banned Kenya’s national airline from entering the country, in the latest move in a deepening row triggered by Tanzania’s controversial handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
Tanzania said Kenya Airways flights were being banned “on a reciprocal basis” after Kenya decided against including Tanzania in a list of countries whose passengers would be permitted to enter Kenya when commercial flights resumed on Aug 1.
“Tanzania has noted … its exclusion in the list of countries whose people will be allowed to travel into Kenya,” Tanzania Civil Aviation Authority director-general Hamza Johari said in a letter sent to Kenya Airways.
“The Tanzanian government has decided to nullify its approval for Kenya Airways flights between Nairobi and Dar/Kilimanjaro/Zanzibar effective August 1, 2020 until further notice,” Johari wrote.
“This letter also rescinds all previous arrangements that permit KQ flights into the United Republic of Tanzania.”
The diplomatic spat between Kenya and Tanzania erupted soon after the outbreak of the pandemic in East Africa, when Kenya blocked Tanzanian truck drivers from entering the country, fearing they would spread the disease. — NNN-AGENCIES
