KQ eyes fleet recovery after planes grounding turbulence

Kenya Airways aircraft at JKIA, Nairobi. [File, Standard]

After months of operational turbulence, the national carrier Kenya Airways (KQ) has revealed that all its grounded aircraft will be back in the skies by June 2026, marking a major recovery push after months of disruption.

The airline has faced prolonged technical challenges and spare-parts shortages that forced several planes out of operation, denting passenger numbers and weighing in on earnings prospects for 2025.

At the peak of the disruption, KQ had grounded nearly a third of its fleet, about 11 aircraft, including three of its nine Boeing 787 Dreamliners, significantly impacting its most profitable long-haul routes.

Acting Chief Executive George Kamal said some of the planes have already returned to service, with the rest expected to be back “in the coming months”, with one of the 787 expected to be back by March.

“By June, all of our fleet will be up and flying. Other than normal maintenance, I expect that by mid-year, we will be in a different space,” said Kamal, noting that the re-entry of all aircraft into service by then would correspond with the high tourism season. 

Between June and October 2026, there is increased travel in the region, driven by the great wildebeest migration in Kenya and Tanzania, favourable weather and the summer holidays in Europe and North America.

The high traveller number around this season has traditionally seen KQ increase their trips on routes such as Nairobi-New York, to cash in on the travel boom.

The grounding of KQ’s aircraft has had a major impact on the carrier, resulting in reduced passengers and undermining the Sh5.4 billion profit after tax that the carrier made in 2024 after more than a decade of loss-making. The carrier in November last year issued a profit warning, indicating that its earnings for the year to December 2025 would drop by more than 25 per cent. 

KQ had grounded three out of its nine wide-body aircraft due to global supply chain delays in sourcing spare parts and engine maintenance constraints, which affected its operations in lucrative long-haul flights.

This resulted in a decline in passenger numbers but also inconveniences for many of its customers who had to endure regular flight delays. Kamal said that grounding of aircraft is not unique to KQ and that bigger carriers have even bigger numbers of grounded aircraft. 

“It is something across the airlines and not specific to KQ, but we feel the impact more because our fleet is small and still growing. When one aircraft is grounded, we feel the impact. We are working on it. We have a plan to lease engines and address the spare parts issues based on this plan. We are getting the aircraft back online,” he said.

Kamal explained that in execution of the post Covid-19 recovery plan dubbed Project Kifaru, the carrier had not anticipated certain factors such as a shortage of space aircraft spare parts, fuelled by post Covid-19 aviation sector recovery and geopolitical disruptions, some of the challenges being beyond its control.

He said the second phase of Kifaru has since been tweaked to take into consideration such developments. 

“We are now implementing Kifaru II. The first phase had not factored in some of the major disruptions that we experienced that also significantly affected our cashflow but we have tweaked this,” he said. 

While Kamal is bullish that KQ will get the required parts and get its planes flying, the carrier still faces challenges in securing the essential parts. 

Liquid competitors

Cash-strapped, the airline risks being crowded out of the global supply chain by larger, more liquid competitors.

Without an immediate capital injection, the airline has to contend with the possibility of being bumped off the line for parts by better-funded players.

Other than resolving the spare parts and engine maintenance issues, KQ is looking to increase its fleet to 60 over the next four years, with Kamal saying that by the next year, the carrier will add three new aircraft – 737 Max, 737NG and 777 – to its fleet.

It is however, a venture that is unlikely to get support through internally generated funds. The government is also unlikely to support such a capital-intensive investment.

KQ has for several years unsuccessfully been looking for a deep-pocketed investor to set it on a sustainable path, including financing its expansion. Kamal said this is still a work in progress, and before then, the airline has to cut costs.

“We are still looking for an investor. In the meantime, we are optimising costs without jeopardising safety or compliance,” said the chief executive.

The national carrier is also unlikely to expect much assistance from the State, which has been pushing for KQ to run on its own, albeit unsuccessfully and has over the years had to step in and bail it out. This, even Kamal concedes, is unsustainable, noting that there are numerous other ways the government can support the carrier. He however, noted that the carrier has the potential to carry its own weight 

“It is not correct to always have our hands stretched to the government to get funding. All KQ needs is support from the government,” he said.

KQ has perennially been a drain to taxpayers, and in the financial year ending on June 2025, Treasury spent Sh19.7 billion in repaying a loan that the carrier had taken from a US lender in 2017 for fleet expansion, according to Treasury’s Public Debt Management Office’s (PDMO) most recent debt report.

Treasury took over the loan in 2022 after KQ defaulted on repayments as it struggled with cash flow challenges following the Covid-19 pandemic.

KQ, at the time implementing project “Mawingu”, had taken the $525 million (Sh68 billion) facility to acquire seven planes and one engine from Private Export Funding Corporation (Pefco) and guaranteed by Exim Bank of the USA, which was in turn guaranteed by Kenya. 

After defaulting, the government agreed to pay the arrears and also take over the loan balance. The loan had a tenure of 10 years to the 2027/28 financial year.  “Following the novation of KQ debt, the government serviced guaranteed debt on behalf of Kenya Airways amounting to Sh19.7 billion in principal repayment during the 2024/25 financial year,” Treasury said in the debt report. 

President William Ruto’s administration has been keen on weaning KQ off exchequer support, noting that it had proved that it can run sustainably in the past, with the 2024 performance cited as proof that it can run on its own.

The President, early in his administration, noted that KQ ‘cannot be on life-support forever’ while Treasury officials note that support has, in the recent past, focused more on stabilising the carrier to run independently.