Airline to increase its flights into Kenya

Two airplanes laden with close to 300 tourists from western Europe landed at the Moi International Airport (MIA) early yesterday, a gesture hailed by stakeholders as a sign of undying faith in Kenya as a tourism destination.

One of the world’s leading  leisure airlines, Condor, has announced that it will  increase its flight rotations to  Moi International Airport Mombasa beginning end of July to four flights a week.

The airline announced this when one of its planes landed at the airport early yesterday with 200 tourists, mainly Germans, who were en route to Zanzibar at a time when Kenya’s tourism sector at the coast has taken a beating due to terrorism fears.

More flights

Condor has an annual transportation capacity of more than 6.7 million and covers over 75 destinations  in Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas.

According to Tim Remberg, TUI’s Resident Manager in charge of the German and Polish markets in Mombasa, the current two flights per week on Monday and Saturday will, starting next month, increase to three weekly flights.

TUI is Europe’s leading travel group and speaking to The Standard at MIA yesterday, Remberg said starting end of June, a fourth charter flight will be flying into Mombasa direct from Frankfurt, Germany.

The Condor flight from Frankfurt touched down at MIA at 5.45am.

 Speaking to The Standard after alighting from the flight, German tourist, Sebastian Glau and his partner Eileen Grossmaur said this was their first visit to Kenya.

“We are looking forward to an eight-day Safari where we hope to sample Kenya’s idyllic wildlife and scenery which we have only heard of. We will then go to Zanzibar after this for a beach holiday,’’ Glau said.

Travel advisories

Earlier on, a Turkish Airlines operated flight with 50 tourists on board touched down at 3am from Istanbul via Kilimanjaro, Tanzania.

Recent travel advisories issued by the United Kingdom, France and the United States of America followed by evacuation of tourists created a dent in Kenya’s travel and tourism industry.

 The UK-based, all-inclusive tour company, First Choice, and Thomson Airways cancelled all flights and vacations to Kenya.

A statement posted on the Thompson Tours website indicated that it has cancelled all flights to Mombasa until October 31, 2014.

Thomson and First Choice Resort Team Manager Racheal Day said they were directed to repatriate 447 British nationals in Mombasa.

The latest British advisory issued extended to areas located five kilometres off the Coast from Mtwapa Creek in North Coast Mombasa, and Tiwi in South Coast, but did not include Diani or Moi International Airport.

Most of the tourists expressed disappointment over the evacuation and were not pleased about having to cut short their vacation.