Kenya Airways aircraft at JKIA. FILE PHOTO | AFP Kenya Airways is yet to be granted permission to fly to Tanzania a week after the government announced it had struck a deal with Dar es Salam for resumption of flights.
The airline’s chief executive officer, Allan Kilavuka, said on Thursday they were still awaiting word from the government on when they will resume flights to Tanzania, suggesting that negotiations between the two neighbouring countries have not been concluded.
“On Tanzanian we have not yet resumed, we are waiting for government (of Kenya) to confirm,” Mr Kilavuka told the Business Daily.
The Tanzanian Civil Aviation Authority (TCAA) had last Friday cancelled plans to allow Kenya Airways to resume flights citing the decision by Nairobi to exclude Tanzania from the list of countries whose nationals would be allowed entry under revised coronavirus restrictions.
But Kenyan Transport Cabinet Secretary James Macharia announced the next day that the Tanzanian aviation regulator had lifted the ban and allowed the national carrier to resume flights last Sunday.
Kenya Airways resumed international flights last Saturday, heading to about 30 destinations for the first time since the routes were suspended in March due to the coronavirus.
Tanzania is one of the critical routes for Kenya Airways and the national carrier had planned two daily flights to Dar es Salaam and three weekly flights to the resort city of Zanzibar.
Kenya’s negotiations with Tanzanian are being spearheaded by the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority (KCAA) director-general, Gilbert Kibe, who told this paper that Nairobi was awaiting the decision of Dar es Salaam.
“We have been in communication and awaiting the outcome,” Mr Kibe said without disclosing details.
This is in sharp contrast to the optimistic tone of Mr Macharia last Saturday on the flights.
“We managed to clear the issues that we had,” Mr Macharia said in a televised briefing.“We never stopped those flights, they never stopped our flights, and this very, very minor issue has been sorted out. And we believe that if not today, by tomorrow we shall find Kenya Airways flying again.”Kenya Airways resumed domestic flights in mid-July and targeted resumption of international flights on August as part of a recovery plan after losing Sh10 billion in the six months to June.The national carrier had received approval from the TCAA on July 30 to resume Tanzania flights in August.Kenya Airways said for the rest of the year the airline expected demand to remain below 50 […]