Kenya Airways has the most expensive tickets among airlines operating in Africa, charging more on average than carriers such as Ethiopian Airlines, South African Airways and Air France.
A new study by competition authorities representing a total of 24 African countries found that KQ, as the airline is known by its international code, charges the highest average fares on domestic and international flights.
The finding shows the national carrier risks losing market share to cheaper rivals like Ethiopian Airlines and new entrants, including Uganda Airlines.
KQ had higher fares on most routes where it has competition, though there are a few instances where its rivals charge more.
“Kenya Airways has the highest average passenger price per kilometre (APPK) for all its domestic, regional and international routes,” the report by the African Competition Forum (ACF) says.
“In addition, the routes for the Tanzania markets from Nairobi have higher APPK than international routes, which are longer distances.”
Kenya Airways’ average price per kilometre on the Nairobi-Johannesburg route, for instance, was Sh23.8 compared to Sh22 charged by South African Airways (SAA).
“Prices charged by two operators on this route are visibly different for both economy and business class categories. Kenya Airways prices are 21 percent higher than SAA prices for economy class tickets,” the report says.
“For business tickets, SAA prices are significantly higher than Kenya Airways prices. Kenya Airways on average charges R14,089 (Sh106,000) for a business class ticket, while SAA charges R22,954.93 (Sh172,796) for the same class. SAA’s upper-end tickets sell at around 39 percent more than Kenya Airways prices.”
The Kenyan carrier charged an average of Sh9.4 per kilometre on the Nairobi-Paris route compared to Air France’s Sh8.3.
“The Nairobi-Paris route is served by Air France and Kenya Airways, their prices have a difference of Sh5,000, Kenya Airways price being more,” the report says. KQ charged Sh15.6 per kilometre on the Nairobi-Addis Ababa route, higher than Ethiopian Airlines’ Sh13.2.The Competition Authority of Kenya (CAK) is among the regulators that participated in the cross-country study of airlines.The ticket pricing data was gathered in October 2019 from airline websites for 12 dates between November 2019 and March 2020.To ensure consistency of the data, the prices for each route was collected from the websites on the same day for all the airlines operating on the selected routes.The study noted that some airlines have since exited a number of the routes due to Covid-19 pandemic or other reasons. The regulators say the study […]
