Trouble for KQ’s Direct Flight to New York

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Kenyans are still reeling from the inaugural Kenya Airways to New York direct flight. Apart from athletics, Kenyans have never been this patriotic in a long time or have we?

It was obviously a historic and proud moment to witness the first direct flight from Kenya to the United States and the celebration from Kenyans was evident when the Kenya Airways flight KQ02 touched down at the John F. Kennedy Airport in New York and made its way back to the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi.

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Kenya Airways managers and Kenya government officials were hoping that their experiment with a daily flight would yield positive returns on a route that has been rated as a low-revenue earner with a high load factor. It is the hope of Kenya Airways managers that this new route will increase the company’s revenue by 10% in 2019.

However, this seems like a tall order for KQ as the route has been difficult for African carriers such as South African Airways, EgyptAir, Ethiopian Airlines, Royal Air Maroc and America’s own Delta Air Lines which all offer scheduled passenger services from Africa to the US.

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After all they hype is over, the biggest question is: will the daily Kenya Airways direct flight from Kenya to US work?

Speaking in an interview with CNN, KQ Chief Executive Officer Sebastian Mikosz said that Nairobi’s recent ranking as the eighth city in Africa that will be served from the US by this flight is a very important step in the carrier’s development but admitted that it comes with its own challenges too.

“It’s a great moment. However, this operation is a huge commercial challenge for us,” he said.

However, this challenge is not unique to Kenya alone. Non-stop flights between the US and Africa are notoriously difficult to break even on as has been the case with the South African Airways. Until 2015, SAA used to serve the New York market with a connection via Dakar but the class of passengers forced the airline to drop it for a non-stop flight, despite the low load factor for the airline.

According to the Center for Aviation, the SAA eliminated the Dakar stop after it concluded that the premium demand for Johannesburg to New York non-stop was worth the extra cost associated with not being able to fill up the A340-600 passenger cabin to maximum capacity and restrict belly cargo.

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Could this be the reason KQ is confident and hoping that the carrier will manage to pull off the daily direct flights from Kenya to US?

Mr. Mikosz admitted that the new route, more than just being a Kenya Airways project, is also largely driven by the government.

“The success of this route will take time. In this industry, nobody makes business from day one; you have to build a route and give yourself time for the public and the sales power to kick in,” he said.

The Pride of Africa CEO added that they were also planning on launching a long-haul route to Beijing later next year, when the Daxing International Airport opens.

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Amidst speculation on social media that the airline is flying almost empty due to low bookings, it is alleged that the management is thinking of reducing the frequency on the route from a daily flight to three times a week.

However, according to KQ,  the average load factor for the past week on the New York flights has been around 60% which the airline termed as good adding that they are still hopeful that they will see a strong demand on that route dismissing the rumors that they planned to scale it down to thrice a week.

Kenya Airways hopes to create an East African hub in Nairobi, tapping traveler and cargo business from the region, from Southern Africa and the Indian Ocean islands, which it expects to feed into this new route. The Kenyan airline will also be banking on cargo haulage, especially flowers, for revenues on the new route.

“We have separate cargo haulage sections specifically for this flight and it has already attracted clientele, mostly the flower firms that have traditionally shipped their US-bound cargo via Europe. It is separate because it was one of the requirements FAA gave us. We expect to use the belly space to move this cargo,” said the KQ’s General Manager for Cargo, Dickson Murianki.

 

Do you think Kenya Airways will be able to hack daily flights between Nairobi and New York?

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