The much-anticipated Kenya Airways Nairobi-New York direct flight scheduled for take-off on Saturday, October 31 after months of suspension has been cancelled.
The airline in a statement said that it was forced to cancel the flight due to massive flight cancellations by travellers heading to major US cities.
Kenya Airways (KQ) indicated that the direct flights to the US from Kenya will resume on November 29.
“We greatly appreciate the internet and support of our customers who had booked with us and have made alternative arrangements for their travel,” KQ Corporate Communications said in the statement.
“We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience caused.”
The cancellation has left many travelers who had reserved a flight with KQ stranded knowing not what other flight to book.
KQ had projected that there would only be two weekly flights to New York from Nairobi in Kenya Airways’ direct flight.
The KQ direct flight was launched in October 2018.
For the last six months, KQ’s direct flights to John F Kennedy Airport (JFK) in New York remained grounded due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Kenya Airways was the first East African country to launch a direct flight to the US.
Before the pandemic, there were five direct flights to the US. The five had been reduced from the daily flights there before.
For a return air ticket, KQ had indicated a cost of Ksh118,845 for the 15-hour journey from Nairobi to New York while a one-way ticket will cost Ksh77,000.
KQ explained that the passenger traffic had declined forcing the airline to cap the flights at five beginning January 2019.
In the first year of operations – between October 2018 and October 2019 – an estimated 104,000 passengers travelled on KQ’s direct flight to the US.
The thinking behind the Kenya-US direct flights was to boost KQ’s revenues by at least 10 percent.
The cancellation came amid plans by the airline to pay her pilots based on the number of trips they make.
This is a cost-cutting measure that the airline seeks to adopt as travel demand continues to shrink due to COVID-19 pandemic.
