This archive report was first published on 8 August 2020.
Published on August 8, 2020, Kenya Airways announced the suspension of passenger flights to 8 African destinations, citing the uncertainty of the pandemic as the reason for the reduction in operations.
The airline will cease flying from Nairobi to Luanda (Angola), Bamako (Mali), Brazzaville (Republic of Congo), and Mogadishu (Somalia), as well as Khartoum (Sudan), Djibouti, Blantyre (Malawi), and Maputo (Mozambique), for the immediate future.
However, the carrier will offer connecting flights to the destinations via Nairobi through its partners to minimize possible disruptions, and will also maintain cargo services to the cities, as well as offer charter flights on demand.
Kenya Airways' decision to suspend passenger flights is part of its recovery strategy, which includes operating a reduced network as it awaits demand to pick up.
The airline resumed international flights on August 1, offering flights to 30 destinations after suspending activities for over five months.
However, the national carrier is still in the dark about the fate of its flights to Tanzania, awaiting intergovernmental negotiations after Tanzanian Civil Aviation Authority (TCAA) cancelled its flights to the country.
According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), air travel could take up to three years to recover to 2019 levels, as globally, airlines have experienced a revenue hit due to restrictions of movement to contain the pandemic.
