Why Kenya Airways Could Fly Its Maiden Nonstop Flight to the US before Scheduled Date

Kenya Airways could fly its maiden flight to the United States before the scheduled October 28th date.

Citizen TV reports that plans are underway to have President Uhuru Kenyatta charter a Kenya Airways (KQ) flight to New York, US on September 18th.

The President will travel to the US to attend the 73rd United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) summit in New York.

Officials from the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) are currently in the country to train national carrier and Kenya Airports Authority (KAA) staff.

This comes even as Kenya Airways awaits for clearance of Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) as the last point of departure for its planned nonstop flights to US.

Citizen TV says that the direct flight that had been scheduled for October 28th may not be the first for Kenya Airways if President Uhuru rides the chartered KQ plane to NY next month.

Last month, Kenya's aviation safety standard improved by 12 percent to 78 percent, following an audit carried out by the International Civil Aviation Organisation( ICAO).

“My expectation will be that by the end of August we will have all the administrative papers issues. When we looked at how it was done for all the other airlines, most of the official documents arrive few weeks before its launch,” said Kenya Airways CEO Sebastian Mikosz.

“The authorities are checking the consistency so they just moved some of their staff from the U.S here to overlook and be with us during the last 90 days before the flight operates and stay with us for a few months when the flight is operating so we can transfer the knowledge,” he added.