Kenya Airways Says Direct Flights to the US will Resume in October

Kenya Airways (KQ) Chairman Michael Joseph says the airline plans to resume direct flights to the US in October.

Joseph said KQ will initially fly to JFK International Airport in New York once per week and increase frequencies based on demand.

“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,” Joseph said as quoted by The Star.

Kenya reopened its airspace for international flights on August 1st following a four-month hiatus prompted by the global outbreak of Covid-19.

KQ has reduced its routes by half to 27, dropping nonstop flights to and from the US as demand is expected to remain low for at least 18 months.

The national carrier launched direct flights to the US in October 2018, cutting the journey to 15 hours. The airline completed 594 trips to and from New York, flying at least 105,084 passengers as of October last year. 

The temporary cancellation of KQ direct flights to the US means travelers will have to change planes in Europe or the Gulf, a journey that can takes an avrage of 20 hours.

The US is among 18 countries that have so far been cleared by the government to operate flights to and from Kenya. Others include Uganda, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, the UK, Italy, Canada, South Korea, Switzerland, Morocco, Qatar, UAE, the Netherlands, Namibia, China, Japan, and France.