Kenya Airways battles flight disruptions on bad weather

A Kenya Airways plane. FILE PHOTO | NMG

A shortage of aircraft and bad weather has resulted in flight cancellations and delays at Kenya Airways(KQ), hurting the carrier’s efforts to keep up with rising demand for travel after the world opened up from Covid restrictions.

The airline says poor weather has forced some of its flights to turn back or divert into unplanned routes while some of its aircraft are undergoing unscheduled technical maintenance, forcing it to cancel or delay some of its flights.

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This means that KQ, as the airline is known by its international code, will have to forego revenue and compensate passengers in the form of accommodation.

Chief executive Allan Kilavuka said the airline is working round the clock to restore normalcy in the flight schedule, an exercise expected to end before Friday.

“The main cause of flight delays and cancellations is due to bad weather resulting in diversions. A number of our aircraft are also undergoing unscheduled technical maintenance,” he told the Business Daily on Wednesday.

“We are working round the clock to restore normalcy in the flight schedule and apologise for any inconvenience caused. Normal operations are expected to be restored on Thursday, July 6, 2023,” he said.

Mr Kilavuka said three aircraft undergoing unscheduled technical maintenance returned to service on July 3, boosting its efforts to see it resume normal operations by today.

Even though he remained non-committal on the flights that had been cancelled or delayed by KQ in the last week when the problem started, an independent spot check by the Business Daily reveals that 10 KQ flights were either cancelled or delayed on Monday alone, including a flight to Accra and Dakar that was delayed by six hours on Monday.

A flight to Madagascar was delayed by four hours the same day, while the carrier also delayed a flight to Johannesburg by eight and a half hours.

The national carrier also delayed a flight to Harare by 14 hours, one more to Lusaka in Zambia by nine-and-a-half hours and a flight to Mumbai in India delayed by three-and-a-half hours.

The flights were from the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi.

Two more flights to Mombasa were delayed on Monday.

The shortage of aircraft and bad weather also forced KQ to cancel a flight to Johannesburg on Monday. It also cancelled a flight to Paris.

Sources familiar with the details said flight cancellations, especially for passengers heading to European, destinations come with a heavy financial burden to the airline as the carrier must pay Sh92,000 €600) per affected passenger in a refund.

Sources at KQ said flight cancellations and delays at the airline have also been caused by the fact that the carrier does not have enough cabin crew to operate its flights.

The situation is that bad to the extent that crew members on leave have been recalled back to work to plug in the gap.

The shortfall in the number of cabin crew workers at KQ was caused by the fact that KQ had to let go of some of its staff members in 2020 to cut costs due to depressed earnings caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The airline is now finding itself in a precarious situation because business has resumed post Covid and this means that it has to deploy more crew members and aircraft to service routes that were idle during the Covid-19 period.

KQ currently flies to 53 destinations, up from 47 in 2010. The airline faces stiff competition, not just from major players like Qatar, Emirates and Turkish Airlines, but from African carriers as well.

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The government-owned Ethiopian Airlines is the biggest regional threat and flies to more than 120 destinations.

Both Uganda and Tanzania have poured cash into their flag carriers in the past three years, joining countries such as Rwanda and Togo, which have also ramped up investment in their own carriers.

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