A KQ Dreamliner aircraft. FILE PHOTO | NMG Kenya Airways (KQ) will resume direct flights to New-York from Nairobi on October 29 with a slimmed down operation of two weekly flights after a six-month freeze due to Covid-19 restrictions.
The carrier will initially operate flights on Wednesday and Sunday, down from a frequency of five before the global corona outbreak that forced it to ground flights.
KQ reduced the number of flights on the New York route from seven to five a week effective January 2019.
The airline that ferried 104,000 passengers on the New-York route between January and October 2019 had forecast its daily direct flights to the US would boost annual revenues by more than 10 percent in 2019 and 2020.
The long-haul route is aimed to encourage more business and tourist travel, with the US being one of Kenya’s biggest source of visitors.
KQ said it will charge Sh118,845 on a return air ticket from Nairobi to New York, a journey that takes about 15 hours.
It will also charge about Sh77,000 on a one-way air ticket between the two destinations, prices that are relatively the same compared to what it was charging before the Covid-19 pandemic.
