Kenya Airways Cuts US Direct Flights Due to Low Demand

Kenya Airways (KQ) has reduced the number of direct flights to the US to once a week, citing low demand.

The airline has been operating two weekly flights since November last year when it resumed flights between the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) in Nairobi and JFK Airport in New York after a seven-month hiatus occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic.

KQ CEO Allan Kilavuka said the national carrier was forced to cut one weekly flight after demand on the route dropped due to COVID-19 fears and restrictions.

New rules require all travelers aged above two years to present a negative COVID-19 test taken within 72 hours of travel or proof of recovery from the virus to enter the US.

“As Kenya Airways, we have responded to this by reducing capacity deployment in some key markets such as the UK and the US. We have reduced our operations to JFK from the planned twice weekly to once weekly, and we continue to monitor the situation,” said Kilavuka.

Before COVID-19 broke out in Kenya and other parts of the world early last year, KQ was flying to New York from Nairobi five times per week.

KQ launched nonstop flights to the US in October 2018, cutting the journey to 15 hours, with the airline completing 594 trips to and from New York and flying at least 105,084 passengers as of October, 2019.