This archive report was first published on 26 August 2019.
Kenya Airways has been plagued by flight delays and cancellations, with over 50 flights cancelled in August alone. The airline has also delayed 40% of its successful trips this year, incurring huge costs to taxpayers.
According to a confidential memo, the airline's frequent cancellations have resulted in huge accommodation costs, standing at Sh118 million in the last seven months of 2019.
The airline's net loss for the year ending December 2018 was Sh7.55 billion, with higher costs offsetting a jump in revenue. The company's revenue hit Sh114.18 billion, largely driven by passenger bookings.
Kenya Airways has faced a barrage of complaints from customers over frequent cancellations and flight delays, prompting the government to seek an explanation from the management.
One of the main triggers of the hard questions facing the airline's top management officials was a flight cancellation involving a member of the First Family in Paris early this month.
Internal analysis shows that 182 of the cancelled flights were caused by crew shortage occasioned by pilots and crew failing to turn up for work.
Under the collective bargaining agreement (CBA) in place, pilots can be absent from work for up to 48 hours without providing any medical evidence, a practice that sources say is being misused, leading to the increasing cases of crew shortage-driven flight cancellations.
"During flight delay or cancellation, Kenya Airways is expected to provide essential services such as accommodation, meals, and ground transportation as the situation requires. With an increasing number of these incidents, the costs of hotel accommodation and meals have been above budget by 250 per cent," the memo says.
Kenya Airways' Chief Executive Officer Sebastian Mikosz attributed the airline's deteriorating on-time performance to crew constraints, citing the restrictive CBA with pilots as a major factor.
However, the Kenya Airlines Pilots Association (Kalpa) CEO Captain Muriithi Nyaga disputed this, saying it was inaccurate to place the blame on pilots.
"Since last year, we have been seeking to recruit contract pilots across the fleet (those trained and authorised to fly the different models (Boeing, Embraers) like all other airlines do. However, due to the very restrictions by pilots, we are only allowed to recruit pilots on the Embraer fleet," KQ's head of corporate affairs Dennis Kashero said in a response to our email enquiries.
The airline's average on-time performance stood at 77% in the seven months of this year, having dropped from 82% over similar period last year.
FlightStats, a global flight tracking service, ranks KQ at position seven, with the worst average delay of 61.1% out of the 13 airlines polled.
