Kenyans Stuck in India to Pay Sh120,000 for Kenya Airways Charter Flight Ticket
Kenya Airways is scheduled to operate a special charter flight to fly back home Kenyans stuck in India due to the COVID-19 crisis in the Asian country.
The flight is expected to leave Mumbai at 9:30 am on June 10th and land at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi at 1.15 pm on the same day.
“This will be happening on a case by case basis as approved by the government,” KQ CEO Allan Kilavuka told Nation.
The airline said only passengers with a negative RT-PCR test report and a QR code will be allowed to board the flight.
On Tuesday, India recorded 86,498 new COVID-19 cases, the lowest spike of daily cases in 66 days and the first time in two months that the infections fell below 100,000. The total caseload hit 28,996,949 while the death toll surged by 40 to 351,344.
A single ticket for this flight is going for Sh120,000, which some Kenyans who are stuck in India have termed as too costly.
“The flight is already full. I brought my four-year-old daughter, Ruby Jayne Magati to this country two months ago for an urgent eye surgery that was very expensive. I am unable to afford tickets back home. My husband too is not in a position to raise money for two tickets,” said Linda Bosibori Magati.
Before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, a one-way KQ ticket from India cost between Sh31,000 and Sh36,000.
In April, Kenya imposed a temporary ban on all passenger flights to and from India due to a massive surge in infections fueled by a new COVID-19 variant.
Comments (1)
Here we go again. KQ at its best -NOT! Rather than help evacuate its citizens (read taxpayers or owners) with market or lowered wananchi fees (like Ethiopian did in Lebanon last year with maids stuck there), KQ led by its overpaid CEO Kilavuka does what? It triples the fare and then artificially limits flights to India. It knows the govt has halted Indian routes so its stranded citizens are under its mercy. This is the exact playbook it did in 2020. It was cheaper to fly from USA to Addis than from London to Kenya during COVID. Now you tell me what logic is that?
I will never fly KQ until kilavuka is out. Its being bailed out by wananchi but cant even do its civic duty. And for those who say we need an airline for strategic national interests, I say fine license the damn terminals and have airlines answerable to govt agencies, just like you have Safaricom doing telecom under gov oversight. Nigeria has done it and so have others like Rwanda and soon DRC. But KQ is bleeding taxpayers- thats why your damn taxes are high supporting a CEO who is the top 10 highest paid but posting massive losses last 5 years.