Kenya Airways calls off resumption of flights to New York City

By Samuel Ouma

The much-awaited resumption of Kenya Airways (KQ) flights to New York City in the US has been pushed to November 29, 2020.

The flights were set to resume on Saturday, October 31 but the national carrier in a statement sent to media houses said the delay has been caused by the increased cancellation of flights.

“We regret to announce that due to increased cancellations of flight bookings to New York City, we have pushed back the resumption of our service to this destination to 29th November,” read the part of the statement.

“We greatly appreciate the interest and support of our customers who had booked with us and have made alternative arrangements for their travel,” stated the statement.

Flights to the US city was temporarily suspended in March due to the outbreak of the coronavirus and following the resumption of international travel, airline chairman Michael Joseph had revealed that the carrier will begin with one flight a week.

“I think we will go once a week and then we will start to build. If we see the demand is up, we will go two times or three times a week. I don't know when we will go back to daily flights to the US because of the pandemic,” stated Joseph.

KQ had recorded a 67 per cent loss which is equivalent to Ksh14.33 billion ($133 million) for the six months ended June 2020.

The loss was majorly occasioned by the Covid-19 disruption that led to the cancellation of both local and international flights.

The number of passengers also declined from 2.4 million to 1.1 million over the same period.

“The network activity from April to June was minimal due to travel restrictions and lockdowns effectively reducing operations to almost nil in connecting our home market to key cities,” reiterated Joseph.