Kenya airways suspends flights to eight destinations

Kenya airways has suspended passenger flights to eight destinations across the continent owing to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The routes affected include Mogadishu, Khartoum, Djibouti, Luanda, Bamako, Brazzaville, Blantyre and Maputo.

The national carrier said that the drastic decline in revenues has had an effect on the airline’s ability to continue operations.

“While many airlines have instituted measures to survive, the reality is that the drastic decline in revenues has had a debilitating effect on the airline's ability to continue operations. The immediate outlook of the industry is not promising. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) projects that air travel will most likely take two to three years to recover to 2019 levels,” said Kenya Airways.

Special charter flights will however remain unaffected and the airline says it will maintain the normal freight services.

“We will, however, continue to offer connections to our network via the Nairobi hub through our partners,” said Kenya airways in a statement.

This comes barely a week after Kenya opened its airspace for international flights on August 1, 2020.

Meanwhile, Kenya Airways is yet to be granted permission to fly to Tanzania a week after the government announced it had struck a deal with Dar es Salaam for resumption of flights.

The airline’s chief executive officer, Allan Kilavuka, said they were still awaiting word from the government on when they will resume flights to Tanzania.