Kenya’s National Carrier may be headed for another trouble as India- one of its lucrative destinations imposes extra restrictions on KQ flights as part of a fight against Covid-19 pandemic.
In August 2020, Kenya airways resumed flights to India when a ban on international flights was lifted. The resumption of flights was under a special arrangement, normally referred to as ‘air bubble’ in aviation parlance.
Before the Covid-19 pandemic started ravaging the world last year, Kenya airways would carry an unlimited number of passengers to India.
However, with the resumption of the cross-border flights last year and countries being cautious over new strains of Covid-19, India limited the number of passengers to only 400 a week.
Kenya and India in September 2020 held negotiations on flights in either country once the moratorium on international flights was lifted and agreed on this air bubble arrangement.
KQ said airlines must follow the health protocols set by the two governments. These include preflight approvals for passengers before departure and Covid-19 test certificates and contacts.
“KQ operates three flights a week under this arrangement,” said the airline.
Now, with the cases of Covid-19 seemingly overwhelming India at the moment, the agreement is likely to come to an end as Kenya is mulling putting in place stricter travel curbs to India.
A number of countries, including the US, Britain, New Zealand, France, Singapore and Canada have either banned travel to and from India or asked their nationals coming from the Asian country to isolate in government-approved hotels.
Should there be a ban on flights to India, the ripple effect will be felt by local traders as India has emerged as among Kenya’s top export markets.
Kenya Airways will also take a hit as reduced flights to India would significantly affect its revenues especially after the carrier stopped flying to the UK, France and limited flights on China route.Should Kenya stop travels to and from India, then KQ will have to grapple with reduced frequencies and high number of idle pilots that are minting millions of shillings a month.Kenya Airways recorded Sh36.2 billion losses in the year ending December 2020, said its pilots are only operating 50% of the time in a month following reduced frequencies and underutilisation of the available capacity on to low passenger demand.Last year, Kenya Airways sought to lay off half of its pilots in a bid to slash costs to weather the cash flow crisis deepened by the Covid-19 pandemic […]