Beginning October 29, Kenyan Airways will only have one weekly flight to New York when it resumes flying to this route.
The national carrier has explained that passenger demand is still low, therefore, the weekly flight to New York from Nairobi will suffice.
KQ CEO Allan Kilavuka said the low passenger demand has informed the decision for the airlines to reduce the number of flights in some routes. He added that once the demand increases, it will scale up operations with more flights.
“The Covid-19 pandemic has affected travel demand worldwide. It will be a gradual resumption starting with one weekly service. As we are doing with all the other routes, we will monitor the trends and make the necessary adjustment to the frequency based on demand,” Kilavuka said.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic struck, KQ had five weekly flights to New York.
It launched direct flights to the US in October 2018. The journey takes 15 hours compared to connecting flights which take up to 22 hours.
Then, KQ stated that direct flights to the US were to encourage business and travel tourism. It had hoped to turnaround its profits from this strategy.
The US was among at least 20 countries that were given a green light to travel to Kenya with the exemption of travellers from Florida, Texas and California when the country resumed international flights on August 1.
