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Passenger uplift to Europe at 134,214 was a reduction on last year’s level of 158,247 following the capacity reduction/FILE

Kenya

Eurozone crisis hits KQ operations

Passenger uplift to Europe at 134,214 was a reduction on last year’s level of 158,247 following the capacity reduction/FILE

NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov 1 – The ongoing volatile economic conditions in the Eurozone are continuing to affect Kenya Airways’ (KQ) capacity to Europe that shrunk by 13.8 percent in the third quarter ended September.

The National carrier says capacity rationalisation occasioned by the Eurozone crisis and the suspension of the Rome flights were major factors leading to the decline.

Passenger uplift to Europe at 134,214 was a reduction on last year’s level of 158,247 following the capacity reduction.

However, the capacity into Middle East and Far East regions grew by 34.5 percent over the same period, boosted by the new routes to Delhi, India launched in May and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia launched last October.

In those regions, uplifted passenger traffic at 155,940 showed a marked improvement of 16.5 percent compared to same period prior year.

The Northern Africa region grew by 4.2 percent in capacity owing to increased frequencies, while the East African region grew by 11.4 percent compared to last year.

Capacity in the Southern Africa region grew by three percent and into the West African region grew by 9.1 percent.

Within Africa but excluding Kenya, passengers uplifted totalled 512,159 indicating a decline of 0.5 percent on the back of 5.0 percent capacity growth. 

The resultant passenger cabin factor of 65.9 percent was 2.0 percentage points lower than similar period last year.

On the domestic front, capacity reduced by 9.6 percent compared to similar period prior year due to an aircraft downgrade to Mombasa from the larger B737 aircraft to the smaller Embraer E190. 

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Passengers uplifted within Kenya at 202,112 reduced by 0.4 percent.

The company put into the market capacity totalling 3,817m seat kilometres which was 4.9 percent above last year’s level.

The total passenger tally, which closed at 1,004,425, was at par with a similar period last year resulting to a reduced cabin factor of 72.9 percent level.

Cargo capacity grew by 1.6 percent while tonnage remained at the same level compared to prior year.

Exports from Kenya dropped on account of unfavourable weather patterns evidenced in the quarter and market capacity, while volumes from Europe shrunk reflecting the volatile economic conditions.

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