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Kenya Airways releases its operating results for the first quarter ended 30 June 2009: The airline offered a capacity of 2,821m seat kilometres resulting in a 10% growth over prior year’s level of 2,567m seat kilometres. The increase was mainly due to the introduction of two new destinations into the KQ network, Brazzaville in April 2009 and Libreville in June 2009, coupled with additional operations to Charles de Gaulle, Bujumbura, Kigali and Johannesburg.
Capacity within the European region grew by 20% compared to prior year largely due to increased frequencies to Charles de Gaulle, which had been temporarily suspended until mid June same quarter prior year. The Mid East, Far East and Asia regions registered a capacity decline of 3% over prior year due to change of operations into Guangzhou, now connecting through Bangkok instead of Dubai, hence covering a shorter distance. In the Northern Africa region, capacity went up by 7% from direct service into Addis Ababa offered this year in addition to the Djibouti via Addis Ababa service. Capacity into the East African region grew by 28% over prior year arising from increased operations into Bujumbura, Kigali, Dzaoudzi and Moroni. Southern Africa region registered a capacity growth of 7% more than same period prior year from the increased frequencies to Johannesburg from two to three times daily. Capacity offered in the West Africa region grew by 13% mainly from the introduction of Libreville as a destination operated via Douala and Brazzaville connecting through Kinshasa. In the domestic market, capacity reduced by 2% resulting from tactical cut backs on the Mombasa route and suspension of Lamu operations. Lamu operations were suspended following the sale of the SAAB aircraft that were the only aircraft in KQ fleet capable of flying into the short runway in Lamu. The company will resume flights into Lamu in future when the runway is extended to accommodate larger aircraft. Uptake of capacity at 1,737m revenue passenger kilometres resulted in a 6% decline over last year’s level of 1,845m. The passenger traffic at 639,348 reduced by 4% compared to 664,707 for the same period in the prior year. Cargo volumes uplifted at 11,195 tonnes declined by 27% against prior year’s level of 15,271 tonnes. This is in line with the global forecast by IATA which describes the collapse of freight demand as the big shock at the turn of the year and was down an unprecedented 23%. The average cabin factor achieved across the network was 61.6% that compares to 71.9% obtained in the prior year due to a slow uptake of additional capacity largely attributable to the economic recession. Passenger uplift to Europe at 80,293 remained at par with prior year despite the capacity growth of 20% mentioned earlier emphasising the impact of the economic downturn. The achieved cabin factor of 61.4% was 12.8 percentage points lower than prior year.
In the Mid and Far East and Asia regions passengers carried dropped by 25% while the resultant average cabin factor of 62.7 was lower than 77.7% achieved last year. Within Africa but excluding Kenya, total passengers uplifted were 355,982 compared to 347,166 for prior year, resulting in a growth rate of 3%. The increase was mainly in the Southern Africa and East Africa regions.
Passengers uplifted within Kenya at 118,683 were 5% below prior year’s level. The resulting cabin factor of 75.5% was lower than 78.0% achieved in the prior year.
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