JAMBOJET TO EXPAND FLEET AS AIRLINE EYES MORE ROUTES
(Posted 04th April 2018)
Following the launch of flights to Entebbe, Jambojet’s first regional destination beyond their hitherto exclusive domestic operations across Kenya, are signals emerging that the airline is eyeing more regional flights in line with approvals received from the Kenyan CAA.
Jambojet, in a modification of their air service licence, has been granted permission to also fly to such destinations as Rwanda and Burundi but also, among others, to Congo, Ethiopia and Tanzania – all of course subject to being granted traffic and landing rights by those countries’ civil aviation bodies.
Given recent noises from the parent company’s head office that Kenya Airways would want to start expanding their destinations in Africa again, could Jambojet play an important role for KQ to serve a number of regional routes, freeing Embraer E190 and Boeing B737-800 aircraft capacity to redeploy into a widened African network.
Prerequisite to that however will be code share agreements between Jambojet and Kenya Airways, compelling the low cost carrier to accept connecting passengers and respect their baggage allowances from their incoming KQ flights. A further challenge for Kenya Airways will be the absence of a business class on Jambojet aircraft, which cabins are configured for Economy Class only.
In comparison, when Ethiopian Airlines first introduced the Bombardier Q400, were their aircraft also configured as an all economy version, but swiftly learned the hard way that their valued Business Class passengers were resisting to be put on connecting flights to for instance Entebbe or Kigali using the Q400, until the airline reconfigured the cabin layout and introduced a dedicated business class section – something RwandAir on their Q400 fleet did from the very beginning.
Those challenges apart however does it sound like a winning strategy by Kenya Airways to have subsidiary Jambojet take over a number of regional flights, especially for off peak departures to destinations with multiple daily flights. As seen with Entebbe has this made departure times more user friendly both ways and – at least for those booking early enough – brought the cost of travel down too with fares starting as low as 116 US Dollars one way.
It is therefore expected that both Jambojet and Bombardier will soon announce additional orders for the high performance Q400 alongside naming additional regional destinations over the next couple of months.
See related article by clicking on the following link:https://atcnews.org/2018/02/16/fleet-expansion-on-the-cards-for-kenyas-jambojet/
